


The Smallest Exy Player, Now Even Smaller

by ionlyloveyouironically



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Fic, Light Angst, Past Abuse, baby!Drew, its basically just everyone marvelling at andrew minyardthe monster being a cute little 4 yo, look im sorry im just way into age regression fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8382901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionlyloveyouironically/pseuds/ionlyloveyouironically
Summary: Aaron pissed somebody off, which isn't a surprise, but what happens to Andrew in retaliation definitely is.(Just another beloved-character-gets-magically-turned-into-a-child fic.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fic ever, and it's probably not very good, but thank you for giving it the time of day.

Neil didn’t even notice that it had happened at first. He woke up, saw the blonde tufts of hair that poked out where Andrew had the covers pulled over his head, and eased himself out of bed to take care of business and see if anyone else was awake. It was the first Saturday after the end of Neil’s second year at Palmetto, and he, Andrew, Nicky, Kevin, and Aaron were in the house in Columbia after a night spent at Eden’s Twilight.

It wasn’t until the early afternoon when Andrew still hadn’t gotten out of bed that Neil went back to the bedroom and cracked the door open to see-

A child.

Neil blinked, but the child was still there.

It sat, unaware of being watched, in the middle of the bed, rubbing at its cheek like it had just woken up. Its blond hair stuck up in tufts on the right side, and it had on a too-large black T-shirt just like the one Andrew wore-

Neil quickly pulled the door shut, holding his breath. That couldn’t… That couldn’t actually be there. He was hallucinating, or still dreaming. How would a child have gotten in here? Where was Andrew? Neil sucked in a fortifying breath and pulled the door open again.

The kid was still in there, but now it was on the floor, midway between the bed and the door. It looked up at Neil with big hazel eyes in a blank face. Its hair was still messed up. Andrew’s T-shirt reached the floor on the kid, the collar so large it hung off one of its tiny shoulders.

Neil didn’t know how to deal with this. “Um. Hello.”

It stared at him blankly.

“Um. How did you get here?”

A tiny shrug from tiny shoulders.

“Did you see a man in here? With yellow hair?”

Another shrug, this time impatient.

“Oh. Did you just wake up?”

The kid nodded.

“Oh.”

When Neil had nothing more enlightening to say, the kid huffed. “Who are you?” it asked, scowling, as if upset at having to deal with Neil’s level of stupidity so early in the morning.

“I’m… I’m Neil,” Neil answered, looking up and down the hallway hoping that Andrew would appear and distract the child so that he would stop _staring with those eyes._

“Am I living with you now?” It squinted and tilted its head a little bit, sizing Neil up and possibly finding him wanting. Neil didn’t know how such a small child could make him feel so inferior.

“Um… I don’t know.”

It stared at him for a moment longer before seeming to reach an inner conclusion it was satisfied with; it nodded and stuck its thumb in its mouth. “I hafta pee.”

“There’s… a bathroom. Down here. Follow me.”

It- he, Neil was pretty sure it was a boy- followed Neil a short ways down the hallway to where Neil opened the bathroom door for him, and stared up at Neil again. It took the kid looking pointedly between Neil and the light switch for him to understand _oh yeah, too short to turn the light on_. Then the kid lifted Andrew’s shirt all the way to its armpits and clambered onto the toilet before Neil had time to turn around.

Yup. Definitely a boy.

Neil gave the boy some privacy and went back to the bedroom, looking around for Andrew, then continuing into the kitchen when he wasn’t there. Andrew wasn’t in the kitchen either, just Nicky flipping pancakes at the stove while Aaron and Kevin sat at the table, the former on his phone and the latter face down on the tabletop.

“So,” Neil started. “Has anyone seen Andrew?”

A groan (Kevin), a chipper _nope!_ (Nicky), and a sour _what, did you lose your way down one of the two hallways?_ (Aaron, the prick).

Neil’s stomach sank. “We have a situation.”

Nicky turned around with a frown and opened his mouth to say something before a small voice interrupted him.

“I’m hungry.”

Everyone turned to look at the little kid still wearing the way-too-big T-shirt. Neil hadn’t even heard him come up behind him. He looked up at everyone with his huge eyes and itched where the shirt collar sat weirdly on his neck.

Aaron choked on his own spit and started coughing. Nicky’s jaw dropped. Kevin stared at the kid in horror before saying very clearly, “What in the _fuck_ is that?”

“Don’t swear in front of the kid,” Nicky snapped, then turned to make sure the pancakes weren’t burned before hurrying to finish the batch.

The kid looked up at Neil. “I can’t reach the light.”

“It’s fine,” Neil replied.

Aaron was still coughing, and Nicky slapped his back once before coming to where Neil stood in front of the kid and kneeled down. The boy still had to look up to see him. “Hey there, little guy! My name’s Nicky, what’s your name?” He smiled kindly at him.

The boy scowled as if he knew he was being condescended to and did not care for it one bit. He crossed his arms and answered “AJ,” at the same time that Aaron finally got a hold of himself and gasped out “ _Andrew!_ ”

All the air seemed to leave the room as everyone turned now to regard Aaron. Kevin started, “What the f-“

“That’s my big name.”

“What?” asked Neil, turning back to the kid with the strangest feeling of dread in his stomach.

“Andrew is my big name.” He rounded out the _r_ so that it almost sounded like a _w_. “Andrew Joseph. But Ms. Watson calls me AJ.”

They stared at the child, horrified at the implications of his words. This kid was Andrew Joseph. There was another Andrew Joseph with blond hair and hazel eyes that they couldn’t seem to find, and who didn’t seem to have left the house. The only conclusion could be that these Andrew Josephs were, at the moment, one and the same.

Kevin muttered something under his breath dazedly, stood up, and staggered out of the room.

Nicky, surprisingly, took charge, and had the boy- _Andrew_ , Neil thought, _Andrew, that boy is ANDREW_ \- seated at the table with a plate of pancake pieces put in front of him, chattering at him all the while. Andrew looked like he still wanted to scowl at Nicky but couldn’t when Nicky had poured such a generous amount of syrup over his massacred pancake.

Neil found himself being pulled into the hallway by Aaron, who looked midway between being pissed off and severely freaked out. “What,” he hissed, “The _fuck_. Happened to him.”

Neil glared at him. “How should I know? He was his normal self when we went to sleep last night.”

Aaron ran a hand through his hair. “This isn’t normal. This doesn’t happen to people. It’s physically impossible to, what, revert backwards in age? The fuck?”

“Talking to yourself really isn’t helpful right now,” Neil snapped.

Aaron glared at him. “Excuse the hell out of me for not so readily coming to terms with the fact that my brother’s been magically turned-” He stopped for a moment, eyes widening, before covering his face with his hands and groaning, “ _Maaaaaagiiiiiic._ ”

That didn’t sound reassuring. “What do you know,” Neil not-asked lowly, glaring at him.

“Fuck,” he mumbled around his hands. “I need to call Katelyn.” And he hurried off to his room before Neil could say anything else. He shook his head angrily and went back to the kitchen.

Andrew was still eating diligently at the table, his fork held clumsily in his little fist. Nicky had piled two phone books on a chair, and Andrew knelt upon them in order to reach the table. Nicky kept stealing glances at him from his place at the stove while Andrew ignored him.

Really, the only thing that was different was that Andrew was smaller now.

“Aaron went to call Katelyn,” Neil replied to the curious look Nicky sent his way. Nicky nodded and brought two plates of pancakes to the table, and they sat down adjacent to Andrew. Neil cut his pancakes into his strips while he thought about… everything that had happened so far today.

“Neil.”

Neil looked over at Andrew, raising his eyebrows in a silent _what?_

Andrew waved his fork at him, scowling, before he went back to his soggy pancake.

_Eat, idiot._

Nicky fought down a smile and asked, “So Andrew, how old are you?”

He held up four fingers.

“Oh wow, four years old, huh?”

Andrew scowled at him for asking something he just answered, but said only, “Yes,” before stabbing another piece of pancake.

This didn’t deter Nicky, whose smile only seemed to grow at the boy’s _Andrewishness_. But before he could find out if small Andrew had just as big a temper as his adult counterpart, Neil cut in. “Andrew… Do you remember where you were before you came here?”

The boy looked up at him and swallowed his mouthful of food. “Mr. Stinson sent me back to the home because Mrs. Stinson finally got pregnant and they could have their own _real_ family.” He scowled. “Ms. Watson wasn’t in yesterday when I came in. I went to bed and then I woke up here.” He squinted his eyes at Neil. “You’re not supposed to take kids when they’re sleeping.”

Neil took in a deep breath, thinking of what to say. Andrew thought they were his new foster family, which was patently untrue, but Neil didn’t know how to explain to this four-year-old kid who was _not his Andrew_ that he had just been 21 only a few hours earlier.

Nicky interjected then to do what Nicky did best: deflect. “So, Andrew- is it okay of we call you Andrew?” At his nod, Nicky continued. “We don’t really have any toys here for you, Andrew, we wanted to wait and see what you liked. So what kinds of things do you like to play with?”

Andrew slid a look to Neil that was frighteningly familiar to Adult Andrew’s don’t-think-we’re-done-with-this look before turning to Nicky. “I like to read.”

“Way cool!” Nicky looked like an overjoyed chocolate lab. “What do you like to read?”

The little boy used his fork to push around his last piece of pancake in the syrupy mess on his plate. “Whatever I’m allowed to. I can read chapter books now.” He sounded quietly pleased, and glanced up at Nicky through his lashes to find the man beaming.

Aaron slid into the room on socked feet, waving his phone around. “I know what happened.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I've never written a fic before, but the idea of baby Drew was too cute for me to not attempt to give voice to. I have it mostly finished but I won't post it unless people want to read it, so kudos and comments are appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

What happened was this: Aaron and Katelyn had gone to a gallery opening in Columbia the previous week, where they had run into Katelyn’s ex-boyfriend. Aaron, by virtue of him being his truest self, had managed to offend, insult, and majorly piss off Ex-Boyfriend. Katelyn hadn’t told Aaron that Ex-Boyfriend dabbled in magic.

“So,” Nicky summed up, “you meet this guy, you talk to him for five minutes, and you manage to make him hate you enough that he attempts to curse you back seventeen years in age?”

“Shut up, Nicky,” Aaron muttered absently as he fiddled with his phone; Katelyn had said over the phone that she would text Aaron Magic Ex-Boyfriend’s number as soon as she got it.

“No, really,” Nicky said. “I’m just wondering, five minutes? That has to be some kind of new record for you-”

“I don’t understand, if he meant to curse you, why is Andrew a kid?” Kevin asked, then seemed to realize what he’d asked, and took another hearty swig of his vodka bottle. Neil was somewhat touched that Kevin was panicking at this level over Andrew before Kevin continued: “And how long will this last? If this doesn’t get resolved by the time summer practices start-”

He was interrupted by a round of groans and a savage _shut the fuck up, Kevin_.

Then the number came through and Aaron dialed, putting the phone on speaker to stop Nicky from his dangerous form of sign language that included flailing around and almost taking out Neil’s eye with his elbow.

The call was answered by a somewhat breathy “Hello, this is Wyvern.”

Aaron rolled his eyes so hard Neil feared he’d lose his eyesight. “Yeah, hi, asshole, this is Aaron. Remember me?”

The guy- was Wyvern really his name? - grunted, and dropped the mystical voice. “You’re the dwarf who’s dating Katelyn now, right?”

“So you don’t have comprehension issues. I was kind of wondering about that, since it seems that someone has cursed my identical twin brother into reverting back seventeen years in age.”

There was a significant pause from the other end of the phone. “Well, how about that.”

“You fucking-”

Nicky grabbed the phone from Aaron. “Hey, hello! So listen, Wyvern, right? We’re all a bit concerned about having a four year old in our care now so we were wondering if you could just undo whatever you did, that would be really great.” He spoke in what Neil assumed was his customer service days from working as a waiter.

“I actually can’t,” Wyvern said, and he did actually sound a little guilty. “I’m actually on my way to the airport to head to Europe for a backpacking trip, so-”

“That’s so fucking cliché and overdone!” Aaron said loudly towards the phone.

“There is nothing cliché about becoming one with one’s home land-”

“You were born in Tennessee, you wannabe mystic-sounding fake-ass crystal fucker!”

“Okay!” Nicky shouted, slightly panicked. “If you don’t undo this, then how do we get him back to normal?”

Wyvern exhaled loudly. “It has a time limit, it’ll wear off on its own. It really was an honest mistake, I only meant to prank Katelyn’s asshole boyfriend for a week.”

“A week?” Neil asked. “Is that how long he’ll be like this?”

“Jesus, how many people am I on the phone with? Yeah, a week, give or take a few days.”

“’Give or take?’” Aaron seethed. “Is there _anything_ you’re sure about?”

“I’m _absolutely_ sure that Katelyn can do better than your tiny ass.”

“Are you implying yourself? You cheated on her twice!”

“It was a misunderstanding-”

“You’re a white guy with dreadlocks!”

Kevin grabbed Nicky’s wrist and spoke loudly into the phone, “So how _did_ you fuck up so bad?”

"It’s not an exact science. Have you ever seen Deathnote, by any chance?”

“Of course he watches fucking anime,” Aaron muttered, face in his hands.

“What was that, you weird little smurf man?” Wyvern demanded.

“Me? I’m weird?” Aaron snatched the phone from Nicky. “You literally attempted to curse your ex-girlfriend’s current boyfriend into a four-year-old to prove some weird-ass macho point because the only way you’d ever be tougher than me is if I was a literal child, and I stress that you attempted because you fucked up so astronomically that I can’t even put it in words!” Aaron inhaled to continue before realizing that Wyvern had hung up. He angrily shoved his phone into his pants pocket and stalked from the room, muttering along the way about shoving healing crystals up someone’s ass. Probably Wyvern’s.

Nicky watched him go and only said, “Katelyn has some strange taste in men.”

Neil watched for a moment as Nicky began to fuss with Kevin- “I still don’t understand… What’s a deathly note?” “Kevin, you’re too drunk for the anime talk right now, go to bed.” “But it’s two-thirty!” – and then went into the living room where Andrew was seated on the couch, staring at a cartoon that Nicky had put on the TV for him.

Andrew would be four years old for an entire week. Neil couldn’t stop himself from studying the little boy’s face and comparing it with the older Andrew’s. The tip of his nose remained the same vaguely squared shape, if softened somewhat by his young age. His eyes were the same heavy-lidded hazel, though they were bigger on his face than on his adult counterpart. Neil noticed that, though his cheeks and jaw were rounded out in childhood, Andrew wasn’t what anyone would call chubby. His features were too large on his face.

Neil recalled Andrew talking about his foster homes. _“None of them would be considered ‘good’.”_ Baldly stated, no emotion behind it. It was what it was.

“What are you looking at?” Andrew asked, turning on the couch to where Neil hovered in the doorway. Andrew spoke with acute care, in the manner of a child who knows they have a speech impediment and is trying desperately to grow themselves out of it.

“Can I sit with you?” Neil asked instead of answering. Andrew nodded and turned back to the TV, and Neil sat on the other end of the couch away from him facing the TV but stealing glances at the boy out of the corner of his eye.

Nicky bustled in a few minutes later to announce he was going to the store to pick up “everything the little guy needs so that we can finally get him out of that T-shirt and into some proper clothes!” Neil felt a bit guilty that he hadn’t thought twice about what Andrew was wearing. He was so used to a fully autonomous Andrew that it didn’t occur to him to even offer assistance.

The house was silent for a moment after Nicky left. Then, Andrew turned once again to Neil, squinted at him, and stated, “You’re not my new foster family.”

Neil paused, considering what to say. They should have known Andrew- in any size- was too smart to believe in such a poorly-crafted falsehood. “No,” he finally answered. “We’re not.”

Andrew nodded. He put his thumb in his mouth, then seemed to realize what he was doing and took it out again. “What am I doing here?”

Lying to Andrew stopped being an option after Baltimore a year ago. “You were older than you are now,” Neil told him. “Then someone turned you into a kid again. Aaron is your twin brother, when you’re older you look exactly like him. Nicky is your cousin, and Kevin and I are your friends.” ‘Friend’ really wasn’t the right word that applied to either Kevin or him, but Neil was having a hard enough time explaining magical transformations to a four year old without opening that can of worms.

The four year old in question stared at Neil for a few minutes; Neil had the urge to shift around but quelled it on the off chance that small Andrew had the same habit of big Andrew of staring at someone solely to make them uncomfortable. Then he just shrugged and said, “Okay,” and turned back to the TV.

Neil blinked. “You don’t have any… questions? Anything you wanna ask me?”

“That is what a question _is_ ,” Andrew muttered, then said louder, “I heard you yelling in the kitchen.”

“Oh.” Neil felt silly, which was strange considering the person sitting next to him was a de-aged little kid wearing nothing but a T-shirt. “If it makes you feel better, you should be back to normal in a week.”

Andrew looked at him then with something Neil didn’t quite know how to read in his eyes. It was gone a moment later, and Andrew only said, “Does that mean you’ll be able to sit up right then?”

He realized that during the conversation he had drifted into a hunched-over position so as to be on Andrew’s level. He straightened up and scowled at the boy, who had already turned back to the TV in front of them.

It seemed Andrew’s love of antagonizing people transcended the years.

Neil turned back to the cartoon and watched it while they both waited for Nicky to return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's read this, I never expected such kind words for my dinky little story! I ended this a little weirdly, but I wanted to get it out tonight so as not to leave it too much as a cliffhanger.
> 
> I have full intentions of seeing this through to the end and I have everything planned out, it just needs to be written. I don't know when updates will be, and I don't want to say they'll happen quickly, but they also shouldn't be very far apart.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, and I read each and every one! (Even if I don't reply, just know that I'm squealing in happiness)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is a line where Neil reflects that abuse Andrew went through canonically has not happened to Andrew at his age in the story, thus he's not carrying any trauma from those events yet. It's very brief and only mentions that it was sexual abuse and doesn't get any more detailed than that, but here's a heads up anyway.

Nicky was, as he was with most things, enthusiastic about Andrew’s age being reverted. Neil stood in the kitchen and watched as he unloaded the frankly unprecedented number of plastic bags he had carried into the house. Neil hadn’t had any idea just how much stuff little kids required, but then again, Nicky had bought Andrew at least seven different outfits and seven different pajama sets (“So he’ll have a decent selection and we won’t need to do laundry!”), along with a pair of sandals, plastic cups, a travel sippy cup, a bottle of two-in-one shampoo and conditioner for babies, and one of the tiniest toothbrushes Neil had ever seen.

He felt a bit overwhelmed, which was never an enjoyable experience.

He interrupted Nicky’s excited explanation of the elephant onesie he brandished in his hands to ask, “How do you know how to take care of kids?”

Nicky stopped and smiled in the way he did when he thought of Erik. The way that seemed to involve every part of his face, rearranging his features into something brighter. “Erik’s family, in Germany. They all live relatively close by, and he and I watched his baby cousins sometimes.” He began cutting off all the tags on the clothing and throwing them in a pile in the middle of the table. “It was actually pretty fun, taking care of such tiny cute things. Speaking of.” He sobered a bit and glanced towards the doorway into the living room. “How is he?”

Neil considered for a second, before simply stating, “He’s Andrew.” What else could be said? He was Andrew Minyard even when he was a prickly toddler. But Nicky only nodded, so he seemed to understand.

Andrew, when faced with his entire wardrobe, seemed less enthuse than his cousin, but Neil figured that was because he was more annoyed at being forced to sit around in only a shirt all day than he was grateful at being granted a basic human right.

He emerged from his and Neil’s bedroom (for the week it was Andrew’s; Neil wasn’t going to force the boy to sleep on the couch) clad in tiny sweatpants and an appropriately-sized shirt. It was readily apparent now that the boy was in clothes made for his size that Andrew was quite skinny. Not to the point where his body screamed _unhealthy!_ but definitely so that it looked like he wasn’t used to even two meals a day.

Perhaps that was why Nicky began making sandwiches for lunch, asking Andrew what he did and didn’t like. He never answered _no_ , only said when he hadn’t had something before. Andrew had to kneel on top of the phone books again to easily eat at the table. Once his sandwich was placed in front of him he immediately began to tear it into small, bite-sized pieces. Neil fought down a smile at the habit and the look of complete concentration that furrowed Andrew’s brow.

Neil was not exactly _pleased_ with Andrew’s current state. He would be downright murderous if there wasn’t a set end-time for his sudden stroll back into childhood. Neil had never been good with kids, even when he was a kid. He wasn’t able to relate to any aspect of childhood because his was so unusual. He was uncomfortable around Andrew now, something he hadn’t been for a very long time.

He supposed he shouldn’t be. Yes this was Andrew-the-child, but it was also _Andrew_ -the-child. That he still had so many of the same mannerisms as older Andrew made Neil feel wrong-footed, but that was because he was expecting him to act like a child. Which was downright silly, in retrospect, because this Andrew was the bare bones of Andrew, the skeleton that his entire personality was founded on before years of trauma formed the muscle and thick skin that for a little while Neil had thought _was_ Andrew.

Andrew only seemed interested in eating his bite-sized sandwich chunks and was content to ignore everyone else at the table as Nicky and Aaron talked and Neil watched them all. Kevin had missed lunch, probably napping in his room. Neil wasn’t looking forward to dealing with how cranky he’d be later.

As they finished, Neil was distracted by Nicky (“So, Neil, are you a Shakira gay or a Beyoncé gay?” “I don’t know what that means. And I’m not gay.”) and almost didn’t catch it when he heard Aaron quietly ask Andrew, “What were your other foster homes like?”

Neil whirled to face the table just as Andrew opened his mouth to answer, and said fiercely, “No.” Andrew’s mouth clicked shut. “Don’t answer that, Andrew.”

He scowled at Neil. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because,” Neil replied, glaring at Aaron, “he knows it’s not fair to ask you that when older-you doesn’t want him to know.”

Andrew turned and fixed his eyes on Aaron while Aaron glared back at Neil. “I was trying to find out-”

“I know what you were trying to find out,” Neil interrupted. His patience, usually lacking when it came to the other Minyard, was at an all-time low today. “If you have anything to ask him it can wait until he’s an adult again.”

“If there are any problems, we need to know about them.”

“The only problem here is you being a dick,” Neil retorted. “Just treat him like normal and everything will be fine.”

“Fine.” Aaron pushed back his chair with a screech and stalked from the room.

Neil huffed out a breath as he watched him go. He could go have a tantrum for all Neil cared. He wasn’t going to allow any of them to grill Andrew about a past he wanted few people to have knowledge of. Neil knew that at Andrew’s current age, the sexual abuse hadn’t started yet. That was probably the reason it was so easy for Andrew to trust them as much as he did so far.

But that also didn’t mean his homes up to that point had been kind, either. Judging by the little boy’s tense shoulders and fixed gaze on the doorway Aaron had stormed out of, they were very unkind.

Neil turned to Nicky, who raised his hands at the look on Neil’s face. “I’m not gonna ask him anything invasive, no worries, my guy.” Neil nodded and turned back to Andrew, who had fixed on him a look of calculation.

Neil was so used to that look that he ignored it. “So, what do you wanna do the rest of the day?”

There wasn’t anything Andrew _wanted_ to do, so they spent the rest of the day watching TV on the couch together. Neil gave him control of the remote and watched in silent amusement as Andrew flicked through the channels before pausing on a marathon of Wheel of Fortune and leaving it there.

They ordered in pizza for supper, and Andrew scowled darkly at Nicky when he declared Andrew _soooo cute!_ at the sight of his sauce-smeared cheeks.

The only abnormal thing (besides the obvious) happened when Neil decided Andrew was ready for bed, and took him into the bathroom to clean up and brush his teeth. The boy took the washcloth Neil gave him and cleaned his face off easily, but hesitated with the tiny toothbrush in hand.

“Oh.” Neil took it back and put a small dollop of kids’ toothpaste on it before handing it back to Andrew. “Brush your teeth. It’s one of the singing ones, so don’t stop until the song ends.”

Andrew stared at Neil like he was an imbecile. “But my teeth are clean.” He had a weird hissing lisp on his _th_ ’s. He bared his teeth at Neil. With his nose scrunched up like that, it was definitively the least threatening Andrew Minyard had ever looked.

Holding back a smile, Neil said, “They’re not clean. They only _look_ clean. There are billions of tiny pieces of food still there and they need to go before your teeth rot out of your head.”

The boy glared back at him. “I do not know how.”

Neil blinked. “You don’t know how… to brush your teeth?” Andrew looked like he was about to stab Neil with the toothbrush, which could very well have been a possibility, so Neil backtracked. “Hey, no, it’s fine. Do you want me to show you how?”

A nod.

Neil was, truthfully, a bit at a loss at what to do. “Can you sit up on the counter?”

Andrew lifted his arms in response and Neil quickly hooked his hands under his armpits and hoisted him onto the counter before letting go. He didn’t weigh very much at all. “Okay,” he said, putting toothpaste on his own toothbrush. “We’re gonna brush our top teeth first.” Neil exaggerated his movements and Andrew copied him clumsily, very focused.

They spit, bushed their bottom teeth, and were done by the time the little jingle coming from Andrew’s toothbrush had ended. Andrew wiped the excess foam around his mouth with the washcloth and lifted his arms in silent askance for Neil to put him back down.

In the bedroom, Andrew climbed into bed and asked, “Why is the bed so big?”

“You used to be bigger.” _But not by much_ , Neil restrained himself from adding. “I’m turning the light off. Do you want the door open or…?”

“Shut it,” the boy commanded, snuggling down into the blanket.

“Alright.” Neil flicked the light off and closed the door most of the way. “Good night, Andrew.” He waved awkwardly and pulled the door shut.

As he was making up his bed on the couch, Neil thought about what he had said when telling Andrew to brush his teeth. _Brush your teeth before they rot out of your head, Abram._ It was something Mary Hatford had said to Neil when she’d wanted him to hurry up and get to bed. Neil smiled slightly at the memory of a softer version of his mother.

It was odd that Neil hadn’t even thought of the phrase in years yet it still popped out of his mouth today. Then again, it wasn’t his mother he was worried of spying in his reflection. The pieces Neil so desperately tried to filter out of his personality weren’t ones that he shared with Mary. But as he lied back and closed his eyes he thought of her yelling, her fists in his hair. _Necessary._ He knew it was necessary and he didn’t begrudge her any of it because it kept them alive for a decade.

But then he thought of Andrew’s little face, his large hazel eyes. The way he had silently looked up at Neil and raised his arms, as trusting as he’s probably ever been in his short life so far. Neil hadn’t done anything to earn that kind of trust from the boy, and he did not want to do anything to make him revoke that trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More introspection on Neil's part! Sorry if any thing's disjointed or weird or ooc, I've literally never written anything before, please be kind to me.
> 
> Andrew's style of speaking always struck me in the books for some reason, and I noticed he hardly used conjunctions to emphasize his words. I'm basing babyDrew's speaking style on my nephew, who also (for some reason) never uses conjunctions.
> 
> All the chapters from here on out are going to be set in a more vague timeline, I wanted to hurry and get the first day on here before I chickened out and deleted everything.
> 
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated! Nice comments always make me feel better about how bad my writing is. *nervous laughter*
> 
> If anyone wants to scream at me on twitter you can find me at @1980sghostboy


	4. Chapter 4

Overall, a knee-high Andrew Minyard wasn’t much different from an ear-high one. They both had a terrible sweet tooth (Neil had resorted to putting the ice cream in the very back of the freezer so Andrew could absolutely not reach it), a rebellious streak a mile wide, and pure, blunt honesty (something most people resented in the adult Andrew).

Another thing they had in common: destructive fits of rage.

The first day after Andrew’s regression in age, Neil woke for a few moments when it was still dark. Andrew’s bedroom door was open. He was asleep again moments later and woke again as dawn was breaking through the sky and the living room blinds. He glanced down the hall towards Andrew’s room, but the door was shut this time. He thought it might have been a dream.

He went for his usual morning run, came back, and showered. He peeked quickly into the bedroom and found a tiny Andrew snuggled into the blankets, sound asleep. His thumb was sticking out of his fist close to his mouth. He must have fallen asleep sucking on it.

Neil grabbed a change of clothes and went back to the bathroom to get dressed. He was still the only one awake at 8 am, so he went to the store to pick up some extra groceries, including kid-friendly snacks. Neil knew how much Andrew ate on the daily, and he was not going to deal with a sugar-hyped four-year-old.

Neil took his time in the store, and it was a couple hours later that his phone rang just as the cashier was ringing up a bag of grapes. Gwen Stefani loudly declared that she ain’t no hollaback girl as Neil mumbled a quick _excuse me_ to the smirking cashier and answered his phone. “What, Nicky?”

“Neil!” Nicky’s relief was palpable through the phone. Something loud crashed behind him. “Where are you?!”

“At the grocery store, picking up snacks.” The cashier snorted quietly at the four full bags of food. “What’s happening there?”

“Andrew seems a bit-” There was a thump, and what sounded like Aaron swearing furiously. “-upset. We don’t know why, he woke up and was just fine and then he started knocking things over and Kevin yelled at him-”

“Kevin _yelled at him_?” Neil asked, very concerned, and quickly threw money at the cashier, grabbed the bags, and speed-walked to the car, loading the groceries in the backseat as Nicky continued.

“I don’t know why he thought that was a good idea, but then Andrew freaked out and now he’s been breaking things- Aaron, get him!” Aaron must have got him, because there was a breathless _oof!_ , and then the most unholy screech Neil had ever heard started up.

Neil, wincing, assured Nicky he’d be home in ten minutes. He made the fifteen-minute drive in half the time, and leaped up the porch steps. Kevin was sitting beside the door with his headphones on, hunched over, looking at his phone.

Neil plucked the phone from his grasp, unplugged the headphone cord from the jack, and tossed his phone into the grass of the lawn. “Bring the groceries in.” He tossed the car keys onto Kevin’s face and turned away from the indignant squawk Kevin made at the mistreatment of his phone and visage.

Inside was, blessedly, rid of the absolutely terrifying screeching that had emitted from the phone earlier. Neil didn’t know if that meant Andrew had calmed down or if he had combusted from his rage. Either seemed equally likely.

Aaron was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a bag of peas over his nose. He glared at Neil.

“Where’s Andrew?” Neil asked.

“Crying in his room,” Aaron answered, muffled through the peas.

“Where’s Nicky?” Neil asked, his shoulders starting to relax.

“Crying in his room,” Aaron answered, rolling his eyes.

Neil was finally able to let his breath out, and asked, “What happened?”

Aaron’s glare redoubled its efforts, though they were somewhat undermined at how comical he looked with a bag of frozen vegetables plastered across his face. “Andrew woke up, came out here, was fine, then he started walking around the house, looking for _you_.” He paused in order to glare at Neil with his full focus. “Then he asks where you are, Nicky says you must have gone somewhere, and Andrew sulks. Then I guess Kevin got too annoyed, and he yells at Andrew, and then Andrew just. Loses it.” He sighed, giving up on being angry for the moment. “He was running around smashing shit and then I grabbed him before he tipped the TV over onto himself.”

Kevin came into the kitchen with the bags and started forcefully putting everything away, scowling at Neil when he could. Neil ignored him. “Is that when he started screaming?”

Aaron nodded and removed the peas from his face. “ _And_ when he smashed his hard-as-fuck head into my face.” Neil had to give it to him; judging by the angry bruise on the left side of Aaron’s nose, Andrew’s head _was_ hard as fuck.

Neil asked, trying to appear sympathetic, “It’s not broken, is it?”

“Fuck off, Josten.” Aaron took the peas and went to the living room.

Kevin was still scowling at him, so he flipped him the bird before going down the hallway and stopping in front of Andrew’s door. He hesitated before tapping his knuckles loudly in the door and opening it.

Andrew was sitting up in the bed with his back against the wall, legs crossed. His hands were folded neatly in his lap and his face was blank. He was the picture of calm innocence, if one ignored his messy hair, his clothes in disarray, or the way the room was utterly _trashed_. Clothes were strewn all around the closet door, looking like they’d been thrown; the drawers of the dresser had been pulled out and emptied; Neil’s cellphone charger had been ripped out of the wall and flung to the ceiling fan, where it now dangled pathetically.

Neil ignored all that, however, to shut the door and take three steps into the room so he was in Andrew’s line of sight. Andrew looked at him for a moment and then turned his head resolutely away.

“Andrew.”

Andrew folded his arms.

Neil thought if Andrew were older, the problem would have been more readily apparent. Then again, if Andrew were older, there probably wouldn’t have been a problem to puzzle over. A full-sized Andrew would not have had a meltdown when Neil went to the store.

_Maybe that’s the problem._

“Were you upset that I was gone?”

This earns Neil a look, albeit a rather dark and vaguely murderous one.

“I just went to the store,” Neil told him. “I was picking up some food for you to eat.”

His arms tightened around his small body.

He wasn’t making this easy. “Why were you-“

“I thought you were supposed to take care of me.” Andrew interrupted lowly. Neil was visibly confused by that, and the boy angrily exhaled. “You are _not_ supposed to leave kids alone.”

 _Alone_. But Andrew hadn’t been alone, there were three other people with him in the house. _Three other people he doesn’t trust_ , a voice niggled inside Neil. That was obvious, of course. Andrew’s first interactions with the others were an attempt to pump him for information, being treated like (what Andrew considered) an inferior, and outright horror at his very existence. No wonder he had latched onto Neil. Neil treated him more or less like his adult self, though that was mostly because he didn’t know any other way of treating him.

Neil really was the idiot Andrew always claimed him to be.

“You’re right.” He took a step closer and crouched so that he was at eye level with the boy. “I shouldn’t have left when you were asleep, it was wrong of me. I won’t ever do it again.”

Andrew stared at him blankly. He’d never been apologized to before. “Promise?” he asked.

“I promise I will never leave you by yourself again.”

Andrew looked at him for another moment before nodding his head and relaxing slightly from his tense position. He was still in the clothes from last night, and his T-shirt was very twisted on his small frame, the front stretched out like he had attempted to pull it off of him Incredible-Hulk-style.

“Are you hungry?” Neil asked. Andrew looked at him as his stomach growled. If Neil didn’t know better he’d think he’d done it on purpose. “Okay, I’m gonna clean this up a little and then I’ll get you some cereal, alright?”

Andrew shrugged and looked away, which Neil took as a go-ahead. The room was tidied in short order (while Andrew watched from the bed) and soon Andrew was sat on his phonebook chair wielding a spoon and gazing fixedly into his bowl of Trix. Neil went with the more conservative option of Raisin Bran and finished two bowls in the time it took Andrew to finish one.

Neil helped Andrew down, handed him a washcloth to wipe his mouth, and then wiped up the small milk spills left on the table. “I’m gonna go find Nicky and see what he’s up to. You can come with or do whatever.”

The boy cast him a scathing look and pointedly went into the living room.

Neil knocked on Nicky’s door and entered after a quiet voice told him to. Nicky was laying back on his bed with an arm thrown over his eyes. His other hand rested on his flat stomach. “Is it safe to come out now,” he asked dully.

Neil huffed something that could charitably be called a laugh. “Yeah. Are you alright?”

“Who, me?” The corners of his mouth turned up. “I’m peachy keen, my guy.” He sat up and rubbed the heel of his palms into his eyes roughly.

“Aaron said you were upset.”

He sniffed and dropped his hands. His eyes were red, either from previous crying or how he was just trying to shove them back into his brain. “I was.” He looked up at Neil. “Andrew was very upset and there was nothing I could do.”

“Well,” Neil said awkwardly, “He’s fine now, so…”

Nicky sniffed again and huffed a laugh as if to say, _Yeah, how silly am I?_ Neil, though, knew Nicky was only ever silly on purpose. “Good, that’s good. He’s fine?”

“Absolutely. Fed and watching TV with Aaron, I think.”

“Good.” He nodded and stood, stretching his arms above his head as if he had been taking a midday nap instead of having a quiet breakdown. “Get out there and keep the little tyke company.”

Neil grinned at the idea of Andrew being considered a ‘tyke’ and did as Nicky said. Andrew was sitting in the middle of the couch with Aaron at one end. The full-sized Minyard was texting intensely on his phone. Neil took a moment to study the two of them together, unbeknownst to them.

He knew that the twins gained weight easily; even with Andrew as jacked as he was from all the weight training he did, he was still soft. He was at least two times as muscular as Neil was, but whereas Neil had next to no fat in his body, Andrew had enough to make the unrelenting hardness of his body comfortable.

Four-year-old Andrew was skinny. His elbows were on the wrong side of too boney, and the previous night when Neil had picked him up, he could feel Andrew’s ribs too easily through his skin. There were faint shadows under his eyes, and Neil didn’t know whether they were from general malnutrition or if the boy had slept badly the night before.

(Neil didn’t know, but it was both.)

Aaron finished texting, glanced up at the cartoon that was showing, and picked the remote up to change the channel. Andrew saw what he was doing and lunged at his arm, trying to grab the remote from him, but Aaron held it over his head. “I’m tired of this dumb cartoon.”

“You are dumb.”

Aaron scoffed. “Rude.” He started flipping through the channels, settling on the Discovery channel. He sat back and watched some archaeologists brush dust off of bones.

Andrew scowled. “I do not want to watch this. Change it back.” His high-pitched voice made him much less menacing than what Aaron was used to, so he wasn’t moved.

“No.”

Andrew reached again for the remote, which Aaron had settled beside him on the cushion. Aaron managed to grab it back and blocked Andrew’s next attempt by putting his hand on his face and gently pushing backwards. The boy seemed to realize his defeat and went with it, flopping dramatically back onto the couch with his limbs spread wide like a hero fallen in battle. He sighed obnoxiously.

It was horrifically cute. Neil smothered a grin behind his fist.

The rest of the day was spent much like the first, Andrew sticking relatively close to Neil while solving a small jigsaw puzzle that Nicky had gotten him. They ate some kind of stuffed chicken breast dish Nicky had thrown together, and Neil took notice again of the uncoordinated way Andrew held his silverware, though he was very careful not to make a mess.

Andrew and Neil brushed their teeth together before bed, Andrew sitting up on the counter again, when Andrew said, “I will tell you what Aaron wanted to know if you tell me what happened to your face.”

 _A truth for a truth._ It was disarming to see pieces of the Andrew that Neil knew come out of this tiny child.

Neil fixed him with the same look he’d give adult Andrew when the other was acting particularly stubborn. “Do you want to know what happened to my face?”

Andrew nodded.

“Finish brushing.”

They finished, and went to the bedroom. After Andrew was in his pajamas and tucked in on his side of the bed, Neil carefully sat at the edge. Andrew scooted closer, lying next to Neil’s thigh. “You wanna know what happened to my face?”

“Yes,” Andrew answered again, irritated at having to repeat himself.

Neil figured an oversimplified version would be appropriate enough. “I was taken by some bad people, and they hurt me.”

“Why?”

“They were mad at me because I had taken something from them.”

Andrew’s little brow furrowed. “Who was it?”

“It was my dad, and the people who worked for him.”

His little brow furrowed further. “Is that why your hands are like that?”

Neil glanced down at his hands. He hadn’t even noticed Andrew noticing the scarring, but then again, how could he miss it? “Yes. They burned me.”

Andrew was frowning, looking up at Neil with unhappiness mixed with reproach. His expression said, _I feel bad for you, now stop giving me reason to do so._ “Are you okay?”

Neil blinked. He often forgot that Andrew wasn’t old enough to have been emotionally gutted yet. “Yeah, I’m okay. They’re just scars.”

Andrew squinted at him, and reached a small hand up. When Neil didn’t move, he beckoned him down, and when Neil leaned close enough, he put his hand on Neil’s burnt cheek. His little fingers felt the skin there, on the misshapen triangle of burnt flesh and around the edges where they blended into normal skin. When satisfied, he nodded and took his hand back, pulling the covers up to his chin.

The corner of Neil’s mouth twitched up. He didn’t notice. “Good night, Andrew.” He flicked off the light and watched Andrew turn his back to the door with a mumble before shutting the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This thing will probably end up being longer than it needs to be (just like everything, including every chapter's end notes), and it was going to be longer before I decided to end it here.
> 
> I've been giving Aaron too bad of a rep honestly, because he is a major asshole, but I feel that he really does love his brother, especially when he's cute and innocent. So you get a cute very tiny scene there!
> 
> I could get into Nicky more in this story, but idk whether that would detract from the (plotless and pointless) story. Let me know!
> 
> Again, thank y'all so much for the kudos and comments, they really do keep me going! I'm so glad y'all like it!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because anything posted on the Minyard twins' birthday should be appropriately angsty. (Sorry.)

It was no secret that Neil was a light sleeper. Since the events of the previous year and his newfound safety, though, he didn’t tend to wake up at every little thing anymore, which is why he was slightly confused when he burst into consciousness on the couch.

The outside sky was still dark, and his phone, when he got it from the coffee table and unlocked it, declared that it was 5:47 am. He listened to the silence of the house, and- there. A thump, a pause, and then another, coming from Andrew’s room.

He was down the hall and opening the door before he’d even thought of it. The room was lit only by the streetlight outside filtering in through the open blinds. Andrew was awake, and, for some reason Neil couldn’t fathom, trying to shift the mattress so he could take the bedsheets fully off. He was tugging desperately at them, making the mattress thump back against the wall on a particularly hard tug. His breath came in soft gasps, and Neil only realized after he spoke a tentative “Andrew?” and shut the door behind him that the little boy was crying.

Tears were highlighted on his cheeks in the orange light, and he made no show of hearing Neil, still fruitlessly trying to free the fitted sheet from the far corner of the mattress. Neil crossed the room to him and put his hands in his line of vision, the way he did to get adult Andrew’s attention, but child Andrew flinched back violently and threw his hands in front of his face.

_Shitshitshit._ “Andrew. Andrew, hey, look, I’m not going to touch you. I won’t hurt you, _I promise_.” The boy, still sobbing, peeked through his fingers and watched Neil slowly move his hands onto the back of his head and keep them there. When he was sure Neil wasn’t going to hurt him, Andrew lowered his tiny hands and grabbed the front of his pajama shirt, struggling to get any words out past his gulping breath and tears. Neil struggled to make out the near-unintelligible blubbering.

“I- I didn’- wake up- and- I had to- had to pee- and-” His face crumpled and he bent over himself, gulping down air between violent sobs. That’s when Neil saw the wet spot on the mattress.

_Oh._ It was such a mundane thing to have Neil’s heart rate so high. “Andrew, did you wet the bed?”

Andrew let out a loud sob at that and nodded. “I’m sor- I’m sowyyyyyyy.”

“Hey, no, it’s okay, Andrew, you’re fine, you don’t need to be sorry.” Neil spoke quickly but sincerely, worrying that Andrew wasn’t getting enough air and would pass out. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, it was an accident. It’s okay, we can clean it up, I’m not upset.” Andrew uncurled slightly as Neil spoke, and when Neil asked if he could touch him, Andrew looked up and raised his arms up in the universal sign of _pick me up_.

Neil sat on the edge of the bed and picked up Andrew, who fisted his hands in Neil’s shirt and pressed his face against Neil’s chest as he continued to cry. Neil put one hand on his back and trailed the other over Andrew’s round blond head. His back was so small that Neil’s hand covered it, and it was warm from the exertion of his crying.

They sat there as Neil trailed his fingers through Andrew’s hair and rubbed his back and whispered reassurances to him. He could feel the wetness of Andrew’s pants through his own pajamas, but that didn’t matter. When Andrew’s crying finally abated into little sniffling gasps, Neil asked, “Do you want to take a bath, or just change?”

“Bath,” the boy whispered, so Neil stood up, supporting Andrew’s bottom with his arm and keeping his other hand gently on the boy’s head, and walked them to the bathroom. He flicked on the light, set Andrew down, and began filling the tub.

Andrew was still sniffling, but his face was blank, and when Neil asked if he wanted the bubble bath in, he only shrugged. Neil put a capful in anyway and turned around so Andrew could undress and get in. He turned the water off when it was full enough, then told Andrew he was going to put everything in the washer and that he’d be right back.

When Andrew’s clothes and the bedsheets were starting in the wash, Neil went back to the bathroom and watched as Andrew, a thumb in his mouth, batted at a pile of bubble foam halfheartedly. He went in and sat on the floor next to the bathtub, looking at Andrew. After a moment, he asked, “Why were you upset, Andrew?”

Andrew continued to stare at the bubbles piled up on the water surface and said softly, “Four is too old to piss the bed.” He scooped up a handful and smooshed it between his hands. “Four is too old to cry like a baby.”

An adult’s words coming from a kid’s mouth. Neil leaned over so his chin rested on the edge of the tub. “No one here will be mad if you wet the bed.”

He shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You don’t need to be. Everything’s washing right now, no harm done. It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault.”

He watched him trail his fingers through the bubbles for a long moment, then said, “Hey, Andrew.” He waited for Andrew to meet his gaze before continuing. “I will never hurt you. I promise.”

Andrew looked down at the water and nodded.

“I won’t let anyone else hurt you, either.”

Andrew looked back up at him and stared for a minute. “Promise?”

“I promise,” Neil answered.

He looked away and continued playing with the bubbles. He was quiet for the rest of his bath, but he lost the hopeless misery that weighed down his small small shoulders. Neil wanted to find everyone that had ever contributed to that emotion finding a place within Andrew at four years old. But he settled with piling mountain of bubbles around Andrew and dubbing him the Bubble King. The Bubble King’s face brightened considerably at his bounty of foam, though he was ready to get out after his hair had been shampooed.

Andrew, wrapped in a towel, waddled behind Neil back to the bedroom. While he got dressed, Neil put the spare sheets onto the mattress and fixed the bed. Andrew climbed back in the bed and laid down, tugging the covers up to his chin. He watched as Neil waved slightly and shut the door as he left.

Neil laid back on the couch, staring at the ceiling and listening for the washer beep to indicate the clothes were done. He thought about Andrew wetting the bed and trying to take care of it himself so no one would know. He thought of Andrew nearly smiling because he was king of the bath bubbles. He thought of the word “piss” being said in Andrew’s high little voice.

It was easy for Neil to take Andrew how he was. He didn’t spend much time ruminating on the other’s past unless it was to better understand an aspect of him. For example, Andrew didn’t like to be touched, and Neil knew to respect that from the very beginning. Learning why it was so important had given him a context for that information, but it wasn’t what made Neil decide to respect those boundaries.

Neil never wasted any time thinking about who or what Andrew could have been if things had gone differently for him. Neil knew Andrew thought of himself as broken beyond repair, but Neil disagreed with him. Andrew wasn’t some shattered and irreparable thing; everything he’d gone through had changed him and transformed him into someone new, but Neil saw daily how Andrew fought to overcome his trauma. (Trauma that, for Andrew and his too-perfect recall, was an open wound that would never be allowed to close.) He saw it in the way Andrew continued to see Betsy, in the way he trusted Neil. Andrew viewed himself as some kind of twisted thing, a monster with no further plans than doing whatever it was that caught its attention that day.

But Neil saw with his own eyes that Andrew was a fighter, that he struggled every day to become someone better.

The washer dinged, and Neil got up to switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer. He went back to the couch and hadn’t even been laying for a whole minute before he heard a door open and the sound of small feet padding towards him.

“Neil?” Neil’s name sounded strange in Andrew’s mouth. _Nee-ihl_ , except his tongue never seemed to quite make it into the right place for the _l_ at the end.

“What are you doing out here?” he answered softly.

Andrew stood in the living room doorway, alternating staring at Neil and his own toes where they peeked out from underneath his sweatpants. “Can I lay with you?”

“Do you want to?”

Andrew looked up at him and nodded.

Neil scooted over as far as he could and lifted the covers back. Andrew climbed in and, when Neil covered the both of them, scooted over to press against Neil and tangle a small hand in the collar of his T-shirt. Neil hesitantly laid a hand on the boy’s back, and he relaxed further onto him, encouraging him to rub it in small circles. Andrew sighed and situated himself so that he was mostly on Neil, mumbled, “Good nigh-eet,” and fell asleep.

Neil felt a little breathless, and it wasn’t because Andrew was laying on him. He took a moment to let himself actively  _want_ his Andrew back. Neil was unaccustomed to such strong feelings of protectiveness over such a defenseless thing. It was all-consuming and exhausting, and absolutely not enjoyable.

He continued rubbing Andrew's back until sleep came for him as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a lot longer (what a surprise), but it's over 1600 words already and this part was difficult to write for some reason and I don't reeeeaaaally like it so if I don't post it now I never will, so here it is!
> 
> I'm gonna be busy the next week or so, so if there aren't any updates that's why! But have no fear, I won't abandon this, you have my word.
> 
> This is the second chapter in a row where Andrew's thing about promises is prominent but I really believe that the way he thinks of promises started in his childhood, so.


	6. Chapter 6

Neil started awake a few hours later when Nicky slammed his way into the bathroom. The weight on his body wriggled a bit and Neil tightened his arms for a brief moment before remembering, _oh, right, Andrew_ , and releasing his hold. The boy shifted around to squint up at Neil sleepily.

“Good morning,” Neil murmured.

Andrew scowled and let his head fall back to Neil’s chest with a _thump_ Neil felt more than heard. Good to know Andrew at any age was not a morning person.

The sound of the shower and Nicky’s music drifted out to reach them. He was rapping along to the complete works of Nicki Minaj this morning, and was actually pretty decent. Neil figured he should be since he spent so much time talking.

Neil patted Andrew’s back and asked, “You hungry?”

Andrew hummed.

“You want breakfast?”

Andrew hummed again and then sighed and sat up on Neil. He endured the 30 pounds and boney butt directly on his diaphragm. Andrew rubbed at his face, still squinting, then looked to the doorway and paused. Neil craned his neck to see Aaron leaning against the doorway, watching them intently. Even compared to his usual cloudy-at-best disposition, the look on Aaron’s face was very dark.

Andrew put his thumb in his mouth.

Aaron stared at them a moment longer, then said, “I’m making eggs,” and turned on his heel to walk into the kitchen. They soon heard the clattering of pans on the stove.

“Are you okay?” Neil asked, rubbing a hand over his face. Andrew’s tiny shoulders were a straight line of tension, and he hadn’t moved since Aaron left.

Andrew squinted back down at him and took his thumb out of his mouth long enough to say, “M’ brain huhts,” before sticking it immediately back in.

“Are you thirsty?” Andrew shrugged. “Do you want me to close the blinds?” Andrew thought for a second, then nodded lightly. Neil carefully slid out from under him without jostling him too much and closed all the blinds in the living room, then went back to the couch. “I’m gonna go tell Nicky to hurry up. Do you wanna go to the kitchen?”

Andrew just stared up at him in reply before scooting off the couch and making his way to the kitchen. Neil went and knocked on the bathroom door to tell Nicky Aaron was making eggs, to which he received a squawk and a very indignant, “Like hell he is! I’d like my food to have actual taste, thank you!” Neil could hear Nicky continue to mutter to himself about bland white people as he went towards the kitchen, which Neil supposed he knew all about considering his father.

He entered the kitchen just as Andrew, facing off with Aaron, upended a plastic kid cup full of water and then dropped it with a clatter into the newly-made puddle. Aaron was glaring down at Andrew, who didn’t seem phased save for the hand twisted into his pajama pants at his side. Neil blinked. “What.”

Aaron exhaled angrily and shoved past Neil out of the kitchen. Andrew looked up at Neil with a face that was carefully blank apart from the slight squinting of his eyes against the sunlight spilling into the room. Neil crossed over to close the blinds, turning the sizzling mound of scrambled eggs down to low on the way, and asked, “What did Aaron do?”

Andrew shrugged. Neil figured that was as much of an answer as he was going to get and grabbed a wad of paper towels to clean up Andrew’s spill. “Do you want some more water?” Andrew nodded and then clambered onto his phonebook chair at the table.

Nicky breezed in moments afterward, wearing only a pair of jeans slung low on his hips and a towel on his head the way girls always have it on TV. He flopped a stack of tortillas on the tortilla warmer and declared he was making breakfast tacos, and proceeded to do just that, chattering a mile a minute.

He gathered the other two to the table when it was almost done and set the table. Neil watched Andrew clumsily eat with a fork again, his motor skills worse today than both days before. He chalked it up as a symptom of Andrew’s headache, along with the purposeful way he moved his head as little as possible and the way he closed his eyes when one of them pushed their chair back causing it to screech across the tile.

“Okay, Neil, we gotta be at the airport before ten,” Nicky said suddenly. Or, Neil thought it was suddenly. He hadn’t been paying attention to what Nicky was saying.

“Uh, why?”

Nicky blew a breath out and pouted. “Were you seriously not listening?”

“No.”

“I _said_ , my flight leaves at eleven, so we have to get there before ten.”

“What flight?” He stuffed the remainder of his taco into his mouth before he could do any more damage.

Nicky’s pouting reached critical levels. “My flight to Germany. So I could go see Erik for a few weeks. I told you this.”

Neil absolutely did not recall anything of the sort, but he raised his eyebrows and made an _oh, now I remember!_ sort of face, which seemed to appease Nicky, because he smiled cheerily at him and offered him another taco.

Andrew was barely halfway through his two fried eggs and had taken only one bite of his chorizo. (The tortilla Nicky had optimistically put on the side of his plate had been shoved unceremoniously onto the tabletop.) “Aren’t you hungry?” Neil asked.

“Mm-mm.”

“Do you want some more water?”

“Mm-hm.”

Neil went to the fridge and poured him some more water, distantly hearing Aaron mutter something to his cousin and disappear with his plate. Kevin remained, robotically stuffing his mouth with Nicky’s good cooking. Neil wasn’t sure Kevin was even mostly awake.

Neil set the cup next to Andrew’s plate and asked, “Do you want to come with me to drop Nicky off or stay here?” The boy spoke almost too quietly to hear, but Neil caught the words _go with_. “Are you sure? It’s bright outside, and hot.”

Andrew looked at him unkindly from the corner of his eye.

“Not to worry!” Nicky sang out, running from the room. He was back before Neil had a chance to do anything but stare bemusedly after him, and brandishing a very small pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses, the kind adult Andrew often wore. “Baby shades!”

Andrew looked up at him from under a furrowed brow. “I am not a baby.”

Nicky ignored him to place the sunglasses on his face. “You have a headache, little guy?” Neil couldn’t see Andrew’s eyebrows behind the large shades, but he could _feel_ the dark look he gave Nicky.

“Yeah,” Neil answered for him, then stuffed the rest of his taco into his mouth unattractively. He was going to miss having Nicky cook all the time.

“On the way back, drop by the CVS and get him some children’s Motrin and a Sprite. That should help.” He beamed at Andrew, who continued glaring. “In the meantime, I’m going to go finish packing.”

Kevin seemed to perk up at the chance to tell someone they had done something wrong, and interjected, “If your flight leaves in two hours you should have already-”

“Shut up, Kevin!” Nicky sang.

Neil helped Andrew down when he was done and they brushed their teeth together before getting dressed. Andrew only took the sunglasses off when they sat on the couch to wait for Nicky. He put them back on immediately when they stepped outside. Neil clicked the trunk open for Nicky to put his suitcase in and got in the driver’s seat to start the car and get the a/c going.

Neil only realized he was subconsciously waiting for adult Andrew to slide into the passenger seat when he was startled by the back passenger-side door opening. He turned and saw Nicky helping Andrew clamber into a child’s car seat and buckling him in. When Nicky collapsed onto the passenger seat next to Neil and commandeered the air vents, Neil asked, “What is that?”

Nicky stopped dramatically fanning himself to blink at Neil. “The booster seat?”

“When did we get it?”

“When I went and bought all his stuff. Kids under 80 pounds have to ride in a booster seat, y’know.”

Neil had, in fact, not known. He hadn’t even thought of it. He was sure when he was Andrew’s age he had just sat on the seat.

Nicky chattered all the way to the airport, sometimes to Neil, sometimes to an unresponsive Andrew, and sometimes to himself. They made it to the drop-off zone at 9:48, and Nicky promised to Skype them when he got settled at Erik’s. He ruffled Neil’s hair and flashed a winning smile back at Andrew before he unloaded his suitcase and disappeared into the airport.

Neil looked at Andrew in the rearview mirror. He was faced forward, and his hands were knitted tightly together in his lap. His face was pale except for two high spots of red on his cheekbones mostly hidden by his miniature aviators.

“Do you want me to stop and get you something for your headache?” Neil asked.

“Mm-hm.” He paused. “’Tomach huhts.” It was a harder to understand him today; his lips were jutted out into something that was not quite a pout but was a close approximation to one. Neil recognized it as an expression very similar to the one Andrew as an adult would have when he focused intently on something.

“Okay, we’ll be quick.” He tried to drive as quickly as he could without jostling the car too much, and soon he was at the CVS nearest the house, unbuckling Andrew from the seat. The boy took one step then stopped, looked up at Neil, and raised his arms.

“You want me to carry you?”

Andrew thrust his arms forward more forcefully. _Obviously._ Neil picked him up and awkwardly placed him on his hip. Andrew didn’t seem to mind; he rested his head on Neil’s shoulder and grabbed the collar of Neil’s shirt with one small hand.

Neil quickly grabbed what Nicky had told him to along with a coloring book and a small pack of crayons Andrew seemed interested in, and checked out. The cashier, seeing the purchases, asked Andrew how he was feeling, and he turned his head around to avoid looking at her. She laughed. “Aw, he’s shy!”

“Ha, yeah,” Neil agreed halfheartedly, taking his change. When he turned to leave, Andrew faced his head forward again to ignore the cashier, who laughed again.

Back at the house, Neil made a grumbling Andrew swallow the allotted amount of Motrin and then chase it down with a sip of Sprite. “C’n I go to sleep?” Andrew asked tiredly, lifting his arms up again. Neil picked him up, easier this time, and carried him into the bedroom and laid him down. He took the sunglasses perched on top of Andrew’s head, placed them on the dresser, and turned to leave.

“Neil?” Andrew waited until Neil turned to face him. “C’n you lay with me?” He looked up at Neil with tired, lidded eyes. Neil didn’t know how much sleep Andrew had actually gotten the night before. If the shadows under his eyes were to be believed, he hadn’t gotten any but the few hours he had on the couch with Neil.

“Yeah.” Neil pulled the covers back and climbed in, facing Andrew. Andrew scooted over to make room for him, then scooted back against him when he was settled. “Just until you fall asleep though, okay?”

Andrew hummed, his eyes already falling closed. He tucked one hand between his cheek and pillow and laid the other one on Neil’s arm, bunching up the shirt material in a loose fist. Neil waited until his breathing evened out, and then a few more minutes to watch him sleep. He gently removed the hand from his shirt and put it on the bed, then carefully got up and left the bedroom, easing the door shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, am I always going to end a chapter with one of them sleeping? Good job, Andee.
> 
> I was sorely tempted to make that CVS into an Eckerd's but they closed in 2007 and I made the decision to have this set in 2016 sheerly because Nicky is a memelord and I need Aaron to be less terrible.
> 
> This is all just 2000 words of nothing bc I felt bad for not having written for a whole week. I promise the next chapter will have more stuff happen. Andrew's so clingy because he has a very bad migraine, and he's still at the point in his life where he lowkey wants to be taken care of.
> 
> Thanks for reading and for everyone who comments! I literally go through them every two days just to reread them and convince myself this isn't utter garbage, haha
> 
> If you wanna yell at me about anything, you can find me on twitter and tumble both as 1980sghostboy !


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for past child abuse throughout (nothing graphic, just statements of what happened) and an allusion to The Drake Scene from the second book.

Neil was… weird. An anomaly. Andrew had heard that word once and liked it very much even though he could not say it. His mouth tripped up over it, but that tended to happen with a lot of words he wanted to say. He would feel worse about it but he was ahead of the other kids by being able to read, so it did not matter in the end.

But Neil. He was not like other grownups. Neil treated Andrew like a person, not a thing, and he never told him to do chores. He fed him and let him play in the bath. He let him walk freely all through the house, and Andrew had a sneaking suspicion that if he asked Neil would even let him go _outside_. One time he had asked to go outside and ended up locked in a closet for a week. That was not good. Andrew tried not to think of that.

Neil stayed by him most of the time, but when Andrew wandered off or wanted to be alone, Neil would let him. Andrew supposed there was nothing Neil wanted Andrew to stay out of. One time he went to a couple that already had a teenage son. He touched one of his records and the teen had been very very angry. Andrew tried not to think of that either. The bruises on his back had taken forever to fade.

Even though he liked having Neil around, it was not completely bad when he left either. Aaron, the one Neil said was his brother, was nice enough. Andrew knew he didn't really like Neil, though. But that was not really Andrew’s business as long as Aaron did not start blaming him for it.

Today Neil and the loud one left to go practice for something. Andrew wasn’t really paying attention. He had been watching a cartoon at the time, but he got aggravated enough when Neil kept checking to see if Andrew was okay that he turned the TV off to glare at Neil and tell him to go away. He wasn’t positive his anger was properly expressed judging by the way the corners of Neil’s mouth turned up, but he left soon after anyway.

Aaron was weird too, but not in the same way as Neil. Aaron looked at Andrew like he kept expecting to see something else, but Andrew had no clue what to give him. He thought having a brother would be better than this, but he was not too cut up about it since this was apparently what brothers did. Andrew would prefer Neil being a touch too careful with him any day to Aaron almost looking afraid of him sometimes.

Andrew was not scary. Sometimes he wished he was, but that was only so bad people would leave him alone. He wanted to be very tall when he grew up, and wear all black so people would be intimidated by him and wouldn’t hurt him. Nobody here had hurt him ( _yet_ , a small voice in the back of his head supplied), and that was one of the reasons Andrew liked it here so much. Even if Aaron was weird-weird.

The four-year-old was sat in front of the coffee table with the crayons and coloring book Neil had bought him the previous day, and Aaron was behind him on the couch with his laptop. The TV was off, and Andrew let his mind wander down safe roads as he tried to color inside the lines.

Except… it wasn’t working. Andrew knew exactly the area he wanted to color in, but his hand would not listen to his brain. It was a mess, and Andrew only liked messes that he made _on purpose_.

Andrew hated, more than almost anything else, when he was unable to do something. It was easy for him to learn _how_ to do something; steps and processes were easy for him to grasp. But he could only _do_ something if he had done it before. And never in his life had he picked up a crayon.

He was trying to carefully color in a frog but his wrist always went too far and the green went outside of the lines in bold strokes. Then he figured it might be okay and tried to color in the belly with yellow but the green got on it and mixed into an ugly color that _was not supposed to be there_.

Andrew just wanted to make a pretty picture. Maybe for Neil, but if it was pretty enough, Andrew wanted to keep it. So he could look at it and know that he made something pretty. But this? This was ugly. No one wanted to look at this, especially Andrew. Especially Neil.

He snapped the yellow crayon in half. It made him feel like there was more space in his chest. He set the pieces down and picked up the green one. It joined the yellow in the same manner, and he was halfway through the box when he heard an exasperated, “Andrew, what the fuck?” from behind him, and Aaron swiped the rest of the crayons from him.

Andrew tilted his head back to look up at Aaron, who stared back blankly. “Give them back.”

“Are you going to keep breaking them?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re not getting them back.” Aaron left the room, presumably to hide the crayons.

That was another thing Andrew did not like about Aaron. He was boring. Andrew liked that he could be left alone but sometimes he got a little stuck in his head and forgot what was happening right then because nothing could keep him present. Sometimes he couldn’t tell if something had just happened or if it was a memory. He had a lot of trouble with that, but nobody else seemed to so he kept it a secret.

Other times it was like his head was too full of everything and it hurt and he could not think. That had happened yesterday when his head hurt really bad and he slept for a long time. He hated those times too, but at least then he knew what was happening, mostly.

Now Aaron was back and sitting on the couch again and Andrew did not know how long he had been there because he was not paying attention. He decided to bother him and see if he would do anything.

Andrew stood and leaned against the side of the couch, resting his elbows on the armrest Aaron leaned against. “Aaron.” (Andrew hated the way his _r_ ’s rounded out; he wanted to say _Aaron_ , not _Aah-wen_.) “I am bored.”

He replied without looking up from his laptop. “Four-year-olds don’t get bored.”

“Obviously they do.”

“It’s amazing that you’re a dick even as a child.”

That was a word Andrew had never heard before, and he had heard a _lot_ of words. “What does ‘dick’ mean?”

Aaron, who hadn’t really been paying attention to what he said, froze for a moment before fixing his brother with a bland look. “You don’t say that word.”

“Why?” Andrew rested his chin on his arms.

“Because it’s a bad word.”

“Words cannot be bad,” he stated.

“It’s something only grownups are allowed to say.”

The boy scowled. “What does it mean?”

“It’s… a different way of saying someone’s a jerk.”

“Oh. So, you are a dick.”

Aaron snorted loudly. “No. And I said to stop saying that.” He went back to his laptop screen.

Andrew made his way to the other side of the couch and climbed up on it, than scooted next to his brother and said very plainly, “Dick.”

“Stop.”

“Dick.”

“Andrew-”

“Dick dick dick-”

“I swear _to god, Andrew_ -”

“Dick dick dick dick dick dick diiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!”

Aaron’s hand shot out and pinched at Andrew’s side. He let out a yelp and then fell back, holding his side and scowling.

Aaron squinted at him. “I know exactly where you’re ticklish, so you better stop saying that word.”

One side of Andrew’s nose wrinkled up from the force with which he curled his lip at Aaron. It looked like he was trying to do a bad impersonation of one of Clint Eastwood’s characters. It needed work. And then he said, ridiculously defiant in his high-pitched baby voice, “You. Are. A. Dick.”

Aaron threw aside his laptop and lunged at his brother, grabbing his sides and wiggling his fingers. Andrew was altogether useless from his squealing laughter and only batted weakly at his arms. Aaron wormed a hand into his armpit and his laughter went from squeals to laughing-too-hard-to-make-noise silent giggles. Aaron eased up to allow the boy to catch his breath.

Andrew’s face was red, and his cheeks were scrunched up from how hard he was smiling. He held his stomach as he gasped for breath through his giggles, and Aaron realized as he watched him that he was smiling too.

  
__________

  
“When will Neil be back?”

Aaron shrugged, fighting off the feeling of irritation. He and Andrew were actually getting along well, for once. The past couple hours had passed with them watching TV together, and now they sat at the living room coffee table eating a late lunch of sandwiches (substantial and meaty for Aaron, peanut butter and jelly for Andrew).

Andrew continued tearing his sandwich into bite-sized chunks. Aaron wished he had realized earlier that any mess Andrew made would have to be cleaned up by Aaron. “He is been gone all day.”

He grunted as he took another bite and kept looking at the screen.

It was getting aggravating how dependent Andrew was on Neil. How even as a child he went to Neil and chose him over his own brother without a second thought. It made him sick to his stomach to think that Andrew chose to spend his time with an untrustworthy creep like _Josten, of all people._

“Is Neil-”

Aaron slammed his sandwich back down on the plate. “I don’t _know_ a fucking _thing_ about what Josten is doing!”

Andrew stared back at him blankly.

_Dammit._ He tried to leash his temper, ultimately couldn’t, and didn’t notice Andrew’s thumb creep towards his mouth. “Why do you even like him so much anyway?”

Andrew’s hands returned to tearing his sandwich apart. He shrugged.

Aaron breathed in through his nose and held it for a moment before exhaling sharply. “He’s not even that great,” he muttered. “He’s not as good as everyone says. He’s a pathological fucking liar who can’t be trusted.”

“ _I_ trust him,” Andrew said more firmly than his posture showed. He kept his eyes lowered to his plate as he continued, “Neil is not a liar.”

Aaron scoffed. “You’re _four_ , what do you know-”

He interrupted him with a fierce glare. “I know a lot of bad people. Neil is not like any of them. He listens to me.” He tore one of his sandwich chunks in half, popped one into his mouth, and chewed ferociously.

Aaron stared at him. He forgot, sometimes, that Andrew had a hard life in foster care. It was easy to look at him (self-contained and utterly invulnerable) and think of him as someone who could never be hurt. But Aaron was too good at lying to himself when it came to Andrew. Aaron remembered him covered in bruises in the hospital after the car wreck, remembered him sick and shaking the first time he skipped a dose of his meds because he _hated_ being forced to feel the manufactured euphoria. Remembered him held down on a bed by rough hands, his manic laughter, the sick meaty _thwack_ and the feeling of the impact in Aaron’s own arms. Remembered the abrupt and sudden snap back to reality, the _“Did he touch you?”_

They had continued having joint sessions with Dobson this past year, and while Aaron was nowhere near understanding how his brother’s mind worked, he could admit (quietly, only inside his own head) that Andrew was doing better with Neil around. He could also admit (also privately) that he felt a little jealous that Andrew chose to open up to a complete stranger instead of his brother.

Now, watching his now-little brother viciously devour the rest of his sandwich, he realized that Andrew probably hadn’t just chosen Neil out of an abundant supply of options. He thought of how in the beginning, Neil would do what Andrew told him and not push when Andrew made his boundaries clear. He thought of that hotel room in Baltimore, Neil grabbing the fed with hands that had been burned past recognition to make sure that a gun wouldn’t be drawn on Andrew. He thought of how Neil was the only one who seemed relieved when Andrew was getting off his meds.

Aaron would never like Neil Josten, but he could admit that he was on his way to believing that he wouldn’t hurt Andrew in any serious way.

“Are you thirsty?” he asked Andrew, tone a touch softer than usual so he wouldn’t think Aaron was still mad at him.

Andrew looked up at him, assessing his mood, then nodded.

“You want some juice?” Aaron didn’t know how or when, but juice had popped up in their fridge sometime in the last week, and he was determined to make sure that in the short time they had Andrew as a child, they’d keep him healthy. He was already putting on a little weight.

Andrew nodded again and then turned back to his plate, eating at a more sedate pace.

Aaron got it for him, and then, sighing, texted Neil Josten for the second time in his life and asked when he would be back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two whole weeks!! I'm so sorry, y'all. Life has continued even though Mental Illness has decided to do what it wants, and this chapter took forever to get written down. It's probably very sub-par so I apologize!
> 
> In other news, an Andrew chapter! (And Aaron too since he was relegated to babysitter.) It was originally supposed to be Neil again but that wasn't working so I decided to switch it up! Please let me know if y'all like it so I can do more from Drew's POV!
> 
> As always, I'm 1980sghostboy on twitter and tumblr!


	8. Chapter 8

Kevin looked, Neil mused, like he badly wanted to dropkick Andrew into the ceiling. His chin had that stubborn set it got when he argued and he glared fiercely at the TV screen from where he sat on the couch, stubbornly ignoring the chattering child next to him.

It started off innocently enough. Or, not innocently, since Neil recognized that gleam in Andrew’s eyes as the one that meant he was going to start shit, but _seemingly_ innocently enough. Kevin had commandeered the living room in order to examine footage of a Trojans game from this past season on a larger screen, and Andrew had hopped down from where he sat at the kitchen table with Neil and sat next to Kevin on the couch. He’d answered Kevin’s bemused look with a bland, “I want to watch.”

It was sweet for all of five minutes. That was when Andrew had started making disparaging comments and questions with all the rancor his little body held. Neil stopped listening after a while and kept doodling in the piece of paper Andrew had ordered him to draw on.

The end of Kevin’s temper came when Andrew criticized Jeremy Knox for “throwing the ball around like an idiot.”

“He has the throw the ball like that!”

“Why?”

“A player is only allowed to have it for ten steps.”

“Why?”

“Those are the rules, Andrew.”

“Well, the rules are dumb.”

Kevin visibly gritted his teeth. “My mom _made_ the rules, they are not dumb.”

“Your mom must be dumb, too.”

He stopped and took a deep breath in, held it, and exhaled. “Players can only carry the ball for ten steps so that there are more chances to gain possession of the ball without need of a check, there are walls around the court so the audience doesn’t get hit by the balls, and my mom was _not_ dumb because she made up an entire new sport that took the world by storm and became popular even in America.”

Andrew regarded him for a moment, then asked, “Is she dead?”

“Yeah.” Most of a lifetime without his mother gave Kevin enough time to stop being melancholy about her passing. He sometimes missed her, but he could also count the clear memories he had of her on only one hand.

The boy nodded. “I do not have a mom either.”

“I have a mom.”

“Not if she’s dead.”

“She’s still my mom even if she’s dead.”

“She is not anything if she is dead.”

“State of living doesn’t negate-”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Oh my god.” Kevin stood up and hoisted Andrew up, carrying him like a football into the kitchen. Neil looked up and scowled at Kevin’s treatment of the child. “Josten, if you do not take this monster-”

“He’s not a monster-”

“-and do something with him, I will attach him to the ceiling fan and turn it on.”

Neil blinked slowly at him and looked at Andrew, who was kicking his legs less to escape and more to hassle Kevin. He didn’t seem too distressed, and that certainly wasn’t the most fearsome threat Neil had ever heard, so he shrugged and continued adding rungs to the ladder he was doodling. Kevin exhaled in a violent huff and seized the collar of Neil’s T-shirt from behind, propelling him up and out of the kitchen while Neil was too surprised to fight back. By the time he realized what was happening, he was shoved unceremoniously out the front door and Andrew was thrust into his arms before the door was slammed in their faces.

“What did you do to him?” Neil asked as Kevin loudly and pointedly engaged the deadbolt.

Andrew shrugged, upside-down, bent in half where Neil’s arms held his waist. “I just wanted to watch TV with him.”

“Were you telling him how stupid you think Exy is?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“At least you’re honest,” Neil muttered, before finagling Andrew so that he could be set on his feet and pulling out his cell phone. He called Kevin and reminded him that both he and Andrew had no shoes on and that Neil had neither his wallet nor his car keys. Kevin hung up without a word, then moments later, opened the door only wide enough to throw all the items through before slamming it and locking it just as quickly.

When they were in their respective seats of the Maserati and strapped in, Neil realized he didn’t really know where they could go. He and adult Andrew went on small road trips often just for the sake of driving. Neil didn’t know whether child Andrew (or Drew, as Neil had privately been referring to him in his head) enjoyed car rides as much, considering his most recent memory of one was when he had a horrific migraine.

“Is there anywhere you want to go?” Neil asked, reversing into the street.

Andrew shrugged again, tapping his tiny fingers against the glass of the window.

Neil dimly remembered a park somewhere a couple miles away, so he headed there, and was parked within ten minutes. He unstrapped Andrew from the seat and watched as he hopped down and took a few cautious steps toward the shaded playground before turning to look over his shoulder at Neil. “Are you coming?”

Neil shut the door and clicked the remote to lock the car, then fell into step beside Andrew and walked toward the playground.  
_____

Andrew got no less than twenty mosquito bites, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Neil got more and simply did not say anything.

The park was fun. He had never been allowed to go to one before, and the closest he’d ever been was playing in a bare backyard. This was much more interesting, because there were actual toys and things to climb on. There was one toy you sat at that had levers that controlled a digging thing like the head of a backhoe. That one was Andrew’s favorite; he liked to see how high he could get the pile of dirt before smashing into it with the digger.

When the afternoon got later, and the bug bites got too bothersome to ignore, Neil asked him if he was hungry and wanted to go anywhere. Andrew looked up at him and answered, “McDonalds.”

Neil frowned. “McDonalds.” Andrew nodded. “Of all the places we could go, you wanna go to McDonalds.”

Andrew squinted up at Neil, who wasn’t much taller than Andrew where he slumped on a bench with his elbows on his knees. He folded his arms. “I want to go to McDonalds. I never been there before.”

Neil’s frown visibly softened at that, which made Andrew mad, so he scowled at him. He did not like that look; everyone had been making that face at him ever since he woke up there the first day and he _did not like it_.

But Neil only stood up and said, “Then that’s where we’ll go,” and led the way back to the car.

They didn’t eat in the playground section with the screaming kids, though Neil had been looking between Andrew and the door as if to indicate they could if Andrew wanted. Andrew was privately horrified at the prospect and pulled out a chair with a loud screech to indicate _no, we are eating right here_.

After they finished eating- which included, in Andrew’s case, spitefully building a tower out of the apple slices Neil insisted he get even though he did not want them- they drove back to the house where the door was unlocked.

Andrew looked up at Neil when they got inside and said, “My feet are dirty.”

Neil looked confused. “Yes, I suppose they are.”

He blinked at him. “It was hot out. I’m sweaty.”

“Okay…?”

Why did Neil have to be so stupid? Why did he make Andrew _ask_ for things? Andrew hated asking for things. “I want a bath.”

“Oh! Okay, I’ll go fill it up. Do you want bubbles?”

“Mm-hm.”

After his bath, Andrew dressed in the elephant onesie Nicky had gotten for him and sat at the table coloring while Neil made spaghetti. He was getting better at coloring, even though it was harder with the crayons that were broken in half. But he had felt better while he was breaking them, so it was worth it.

Neil’s phone started to ring. “Oh,” he said, looking at it, “it’s a Skype call from Nicky.” The ringing was silenced as he answered the call.

Andrew did not know what to think of Nicky; he was not like other adults he knew. There was an air about Nicky that was just… nice, for lack of a better word. Andrew was not used to that. Even Neil, who treated Andrew better than anyone else in his memory, wouldn’t be described as _nice_. But Nicky was. He did things just to make others happy, and Andrew did not know what to think of that.

Nicky’s face appeared on Neil’s screen and, grinning, yelled, “So baby kiss me through the phoooone, kiss me through the phoooone, I’ll see you-“

“Isn’t Erik right next to you?” Neil cut him off, annoyed. “I don’t even know what song you were singing, by the way.”

Nicky gasped and clutched at his chest. “You don’t know the hit single Kiss Me Thru the Phone by our lord and savior Soulja Boy?”

Aaron slid into the kitchen on socked feet as Neil replied, deadpan, “No.”

“You don’t know Soulja Boy?” Nicky had been joking before, but now his disappointed shock was real. “Are you serious? Where would the world be without Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em?!”

Aaron stuck his head in the freezer and called out, “Didn’t he just threaten to release a sex tape that he made of him and India Love without her knowledge?”

Neil and Nicky fell silent. Neil turned the phone so that Nicky could see his cousin. “Aaron, how do you even know that?”

Aaron pulled back and looked around the freezer door at Neil’s phone. “Everyone knows that, it blew up on twitter.”

“You have a twitter?” Neil asked. “Didn’t you get pissed when Nicky tried to make you an account?”

“Shut up, Josten. And yeah, because I already had one, _obviously_.” He pointed at Neil unsteadily. “Don’t look at me in that tone.”

“Isn’t it like seven o’clock over there?” Nicky asked. “How are you so drunk already?”

That made sense, Neil thought. He had been confused about why Aaron was acting so personable.

“I,” Aaron stated, “am playing a game. And I will win, make no mistake.” He pointed around the room at Neil and Andrew, who seemed to be ignoring everything, and then slid back out of the room, leaving the freezer open. He reappeared moments later to yell, “Bye Nicky!” before disappearing again.

Neil, still vaguely annoyed, closed the freezer door and turned to where Andrew sat, coloring with his thumb in his mouth. Neil started to ask him what he was thinking, but Nicky cut him off. “Speaking of tiny blond Exy players, where’s the tiniest?”

Neil sat at the table and scooted over so the boy would be in the camera frame. “He’s right here, coloring.”

“Hey, Andrew! How’s it going, watcha coloring? Is your head feeling better?”

Andrew looked up and answered around his thumb. “Yeah.”

Nicky grinned, excited at being answered. “Good! I’m glad. How have you been?”

Andrew blinked slowly.

“I see you’re wearing the onesie I got you.” He raised his eyebrows, still smiling.

Andrew blinked again, this time faster, then looked off over to the stove and asked, “Is that s’posed to happen?”

Neil followed his gaze and swore, jumping up and attempting to rescue the stove from the pot of water that was currently boiling over. Andrew watched him for a moment before picking up his abandoned phone from the tabletop.

“What’s happening?” Nicky asked, not very concerned.

“Neil is trying to make ‘paghetti. There is water everywhere now.” Neil swore again.

Nicky winced. “That boy cannot cook to save his life! It’s a good thing he has A- ah, other people around, to cook for him, ha.”

Andrew looked at Nicky for a second, then decided he did not care enough to ask what he really meant to say. He looked over at Neil, who at this point had pulled out a mop and was cleaning the hot water in front of the stove with a tragic look on his face. “You should tell him how to cook. Or else we will never eat.”

“That, my child, is an excellent idea!”

It ended up so that Andrew sat on the counter and pointed the phone at Neil, who followed Nicky’s enthusiastic advice. The food was done soon enough, and Neil made noises about seeing Nicky later which the man in question cut through, extending the conversation for another fifteen minutes before Andrew grabbed the phone back, said, “Bye,” and hung up.  
_____

Neil was startled out of a peaceful sleep by a little voice right next to his ear asking, “Neil?”

He flinched awake and stared wide-eyed at Andrew for a moment before realizing there was no immediate threat. Andrew stared back at him with raised eyebrows.

“Hey,” Neil breathed. He sat up and ran a hand through his hair. “What are you doing up?”

Andrew hopped up onto the couch next to him, close enough that he could lean against Neil. He was still getting used to an Andrew that consistently sought out casual touches. “Wanted some shoose.”

Neil looked down at him, confused. “Shoes?”

“No, _shoose_.”

He blinked, still not understanding Andrew’s baby talk. Andrew looked up at him, scowling, and huffed. “Why are you seeping on the couch?”

“Because I don’t have a bed to sleep on,” Neil answered, scratching at a piece of flaky skin by his eyebrow. He had been neglecting his daily exfoliator; Allison would be unhappy.

“ _I_ have a bed.”

“Congratulations.”

Andrew scoffed. “ _I_ have a bed that _you_ can seep on too.”

Neil looked down at him, surprised. “That’s okay, I’m fine here.”

“You’re smooshed,” he replied flatly.

That was true; while Neil wasn’t considered tall by any means, the couch was technically only a loveseat, and he had to curl his spine and bend his legs to fit. “I am smooshed,” he allowed, “but I’m still fine here. We don’t need to share.”

Andrew looked forward, then asked, quiet, “Is it because I wet the bed?”

“No, not at all. Of course not. Wait, I thought you stopped?”

“Mm-hm.”

“You go to the bathroom before bed every night now, right?”

“Mm-hm.”

“So that’s nothing you need to worry about.”

Andrew looked back at him again and smiled like the cat that got the canary. “Then we can share.”

Amazing that even at age four Andrew was playing Neil.

“Are you sure?” Neil asked as Andrew hopped down. “You won’t be uncomfortable?”

Andrew looked back at him, legitimately confused. “Why would I be?”

Neil had several answers for this, and swallowed them all in favor to get up and start gathering the blankets and pillow from the couch. “Are you absolutely sure this is okay?”

The little boy rolled his eyes in a way that was oddly very like his brother and stressed, “ _Yes_ , I say it’s okay, now hurry up. I want to seep.”

“I thought you came out here for…” Neil trailed off, still unsure what he had been saying.

Andrew huffed and headed for the bedroom. “I don’t want shoose no more.”

Neil adds to his mental list of Drew-versus-Andrew that they both prefer the same side of the bed, but Andrew always takes a while to get to sleep, whereas Drew tends to drop off nearly immediately, spread-eagled and mouth open. He looked at the sleeping boy and smiled, just a little bit, and closed his eyes.

And then suddenly realized that Andrew had been asking for juice. Whoops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering, Aaron stuck his head in the freezer because he was hot and that's the first thing he thought of.
> 
> Okay, a little longer of a chapter for y'all! There are only two chapters left (because it's truly unforgivable how long this has gotten) but they'll be somewhat longish like this (because I need more fic of these boys without suffering, sorry, I took the "write what you wanna read" advice to heart).
> 
> Also, I attempted to give Kevin a personality because I've been neglecting him. And Aaron. And Nicky. *shrug emoji*


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been 28 days, I am so sorry! Thank you SO MUCH to anyone who's stuck around this long. This chapter's relatively short and mainly about Aaron, but. Here you go.

There’s a word in German that translates as “the feeling of being alone in the woods.” Aaron was not in the woods, but he was very alone, and he guessed the well-manicured tree that stood about ten feet from his mother’s grave counted enough for the whole nature part.

Maybe just “Einsamkeit” sufficed. Loneliness, plain and simple. Though he did feel a sort of connection to the neat tombstones lined up in rows, morbid as that was. He used to (not as often anymore, but still sometimes) play eenie-meenie-minie-mo with them, wonder _which one will mark my corpse?_ Back when they’d lived in California, he had to walk by a cemetery to get home from school. He definitely thought he’d end up there before his teen years were over.

Sometimes he couldn’t stop thinking about his mom. It was weird, he knew, because he both did and didn’t miss her. Most of the time, at least lately, she barely ever crossed his mind, but there were also days where he’d be stuck reliving moments of their life together. Somehow Andrew could always tell, and gave him subtle, painful shit for it.

But Andrew wasn’t _really_ here now, and on the heels of that revelation came another: he’d never visited her grave.

In the early days after her death he was either too shocked, high, or suffering from the withdrawal to really think about it, and then later Andrew wouldn’t let him be alone and he knew Andrew would say something about it and he didn’t want to deal with that because he knew, okay?

He knew Tilda was a bad mom. He knew she barely kept them afloat financially, he knew she didn’t love him, knew the few times she was ever remotely kind to him was just when she was either in a good mood or just wanted to soothe her conscience after how hard she’d beaten him. _He knew._

How could he not?

He wasn’t even sure what he felt for her was actual love, but he did know that for the first sixteen years of his life it was just the two of them. Sure, she didn’t really act like a mom, didn’t raise him properly, but she was still the person he came home to everyday. They were a team, it was them against everyone else. She was all he knew, and he’d have taken the beatings any day over living with anyone that wasn’t actual family. She was all he had.

Her grave was just a simple plaque on the ground with her name, dates of birth and death, and below that: BELOVED MOTHER.

Aaron scoffed. Beloved. Andrew sure didn’t love her. Aaron thought he probably didn’t either, then promptly felt bad for it. _Ungrateful. Don’t act like you’re not the lucky one._

He was lucky, compared to Andrew. All Tilda really did was hit him, and Andrew had suffered that and way worse growing up. And it’s not like Aaron was innocent; he deserved it at least half the time, he knew. He never said it out loud, because he didn’t want anyone one to look at him with pity, _that poor little boy who got beat by his mom and thinks he deserved it, boo hoo_. (Privately, secretly, curled in the back corner of his mind, he was afraid they would agree with him.)

They weren’t devout churchgoers, but they went when his mom was both fully conscious and not working. He knew the Ten Commandments. The ones he followed the least were _thou shalt not lie_ and _thou shalt honor thy father and mother_. Well, he didn’t have a father, but he did have a mother he regularly talked back to. Half the time he really was asking for it, he thought. He must have been, to have done something so obviously wrong.

From the time Aaron could walk and talk, there was a list of things he knew not to do if he didn’t want her to get mad at him. A lot of the time he ignored that list as keenly as he ignored the Commandments. He practically asked to get beat.

She was all he had, and then they moved to Columbia away from his brother, and then there were pills and eventually needles. And then she and the drugs were all he had, and it was alright. He could survive like that, because he had a cousin for a little bit, too, and he was a little weird, but that was okay.

His mom still hit him, but they had more money here, which meant he wasn’t so hungry anymore, so it was bearable. And at least now he had Exy as an excuse for all the injuries, especially as a backliner whose job it was to check people. So no one would ever know how bad he was.

Then Andrew came, a hardened criminal from _juvie for chrissakes_ , and he was ecstatic until Andrew killed their mother. If he’d had time to process he’d have realized that he was angry about the bruises on Andrew that looked a lot similar to the ones Aaron always sported ( _twins, can you believe it_ ), but he acted out of grief and lost Andrew forever.

Andrew never understood Aaron’s feelings about their mother. Andrew never had any consistency like that, but Aaron had, and even if it was only consistency that Aaron grieved for, it was still more than Andrew could comprehend.

Aaron looked down at his feet. Maybe he was the fucked up twin, to be missing getting beaten on the daily.

_I deserved it. She wasn’t a good mom. It really wasn’t that bad, I’m just exaggerating. Don’t forget the bloody teeth, the broken nose, the bruised ribs- **I deserved it.**_

His disjointed thoughts were interrupted by a soft melody emitting from his front pocket. It was his cell phone, and the ringtone indicated who was calling.

Katelyn.

He stared down at her contact photo (her, posing with a silly face next to where Aaron was asleep next to her; while the angle was really unflattering for him, she looked like an angel sent from God) for a moment before answering. “Hey. No. Today? Yeah, just give me a few minutes and then you can pick me up? Okay. I love you too, bye.”

He hung up, and as he walked back to the Maserati, he realized he had a tiny, _tiny_ smile on his face.

  
_____

  
Neil was tired, and now he had firsthand knowledge of why Andrew looked like he slept so poorly. The reason for that was because he did sleep poorly. And by “poorly”, Neil meant that every few hours Andrew would sit up, look around blearily, stay like that for ten minutes, and then flop back down and drop right back to sleep.

Neil was mildly fond and intensely annoyed.

He sat at one end of the couch, elbow on the armrest and chin in his hand, as he listened to Kevin argue with Andrew in the kitchen. Kevin had been getting it into his head all week that he could somehow influence Andrew’s eating habits as a child so that when he reverted back to normal age, Andrew would somehow be transformed into a healthy eater.

Neil had his doubts about the plan.

Andrew had been surprisingly docile about it all week, unless Kevin upset him. When that happened, Andrew would somehow find a stash of candy his adult self had hidden and eat it in plain view of wherever Kevin was. But mostly, he ate whatever Kevin gave him.

Andrew had told him once, while they were at the table coloring together, that some of his families wouldn’t let him eat and that others didn’t have a lot of food to choose from, so he was just glad he got to eat at all. Neil told him in return that for most of his childhood he’d eaten canned food and other things that were easily stored or reheated, so he still didn’t like vegetables.

“But you are so strong!” Andrew had poked Neil in the bicep, as if to prove his point.

“No, that’s just bone. I don’t have any muscle at all,” Neil replied.

Andrew huffed and scowled up at him. “ _I_ have bones. _You_ have muscles.”

“Well, technically I also-”

“Be quiet and color.”

Now, Andrew was arguing with Kevin.

“I do not like broccoli.”

“Too bad, it’s good for you.”

“I will not eat it.”

“Andrew-”

“You said before I could try it and if it was not good I didn’ hafta eat it anymore. I tried it and broccoli is not good.”

Neil heard a car pull up in the driveway and twisted around to see Aaron exiting the Maserati that had been missing since Neil woke up hours ago.

He felt his annoyance increase tenfold.

Aaron entered the house and tossed the keys ( _Andrew’s keys_ , Neil noted) onto the side-table placed near the door. His face was blanker than it usually was and he made no effort to acknowledge anyone around him as he made his way towards his room.

Neil considered calling out to him, then decided he was too tired. Now that he had successfully relocated the Maserati and the less important Aaron, he could relax back into the couch and listen to Kevin argue with a four year old.

“I only said that to get you to eat it.”

“No, too bad.”

Neil heaved himself off the couch and entered the kitchen. “Kevin, you can’t make him eat broccoli.”

Andrew sent Kevin a very smug smile, as if he thought Neil’s word was law, which it definitely was not.

“He has to eat broccoli if he wants to be healthy,” Kevin argued.

“He’ll be okay if he doesn’t.”

“I’ll be okay if I don’t,” Andrew echoed.

Kevin scowled and opened his mouth only to be cut off by Neil. “He’s not doing anything he doesn’t want to do.”

That ended the discussion, and soon they’d left Kevin sulking in the kitchen with his failed meal plan in order to sit on the couch and watch the weird cartoon that Nicky had somehow gotten Andrew to like.

When two of the characters attempted to fuse together with a dance Neil thought was entirely too sexual, Andrew laid his head down on Neil’s leg and fell asleep.

Neil sighed. Now he was stuck with this really weird but visually pleasing cartoon for hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been a Long Time™. If you want an explanation, here it is: everything's been so hard lately and I've written five different drafts of this chapter and it was all very inorganic feeling. I didn't feel I had an idea of the characters at all anymore. And then I did the most Neil Josten thing imaginable: I found a kitten with a broken leg meowing in the parking lot of my apartment complex and brought her inside and named her B O N E K I L L E R and manipulated my family into letting me keep her. And then Christmas happened. So that's where I've been.
> 
> I still don't like this chapter very much, but I hope y'all do. And sorry again about the absence!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of past abuse and someone using the p****o slur.

“Andrew, you have so many pajamas, why are you wearing that thing again?”

“I _want_ to.”

Neil watched the small boy carefully put his arms into the elephant onesie that he had somehow become incredibly attached to. “Why do you even like it so much?” he asked.

Andrew turned and looked Neil dead in the eye, then zipped the front up slowly. “Zip.”

_____________________

The seventh day dawned, and Neil awoke with a tiny foot pressed against his cheek. He allowed himself his daily moment of missing adult Andrew before he rolled away and got out of bed.

It only struck him as he was in the shower that today would most likely be the last day Andrew was a child. Relief crashed through him, followed almost immediately by guilt. Then he sorted through his feelings and realized that he wasn’t relieved at the prospect of not having to deal with little Drew, but rather that he would soon be getting adult Andrew back. The guilt abated.

Really, Drew was great. He told you what he wanted, for the most part, and didn’t cry or act very… childish. Which was not necessarily good for Andrew’s overall being, Neil supposed. But he definitely wasn’t hard to take care of at all. Most of it was just helping him with something he was too short to reach.

The fact was that Neil wasn’t used to constant vigilance anymore. (A small part of him was quite horrified at his complacency, no matter how hard-won it was.) And Neil has been hypervigilant the entire time Andrew’s been a child, whether to watch how people interacted with him and intervene if necessary, to watch him and intervene if necessary, or to make sure Andrew didn’t tell any of them anything adult Andrew didn’t want them to know.

Not to mention the fact that Drew was mildly affectionate, and Neil really didn’t know how to deal with it. Small children had always made him uncomfortable in that way. It was easier now for him to relax when his friends touched him, but it was still strange for him sometimes.

This last day went mostly the same as the ones before it; Andrew woke up, Neil made them breakfast, they brushed their teeth together, and then they passed the day by drawing at the kitchen table or watching cartoons or anything else that caught Andrew’s attention. Nicky skyped them around lunch time, and talked to Andrew for an hour about the cartoon he’d gotten him hooked on.

Little Drew was the same as adult Andrew in the way that they appeared as if they weren’t listening. Nicky rambled on from where Andrew held the phone in front of him while Andrew just stared at his plate and ate the pasta Kevin had made. But Neil knew, because every now and then he’d look back up at Nicky and sometimes interject with what he thought.

_____________________

“And then you hafta get a boat,” Neil heard Andrew state seriously, “so when there is water everywhere, you can…” Andrew paused in order to climb up on the couch where Neil lay, and sat on Neil’s arm. “You can stay on top and float instead of dying.”

Neil opened his eyes. He’d laid own on the couch after Andrew had gone to bed for a nap and must have fallen asleep somehow. Andrew had his back to Neil and was talking earnestly to Aaron, who sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. His gaze was trained on his laptop in front of him, but his head was tilted to let Andrew know he was still paying attention.

“What are you guys talking about?” Neil asked, sitting up on his elbows. Andrew started slightly, not expecting Neil to be awake, before launching into an explanation that Neil only half followed. He glanced at Aaron, and Aaron, in an unexpected moment of comradery, raised his eyebrows and lifted his hand palm-up to show he didn’t really know what was happening either.

Neil noticed that Aaron looked tired, the shadows under his eyes a translucent purple. Neil didn’t care; even on the best of days he had little patience and no sympathy for him.

The evening was spent playing in the backyard. There wasn’t much to do, but Andrew seemed content to wander around the perimeter of the fence and talk, telling himself a story in the way little children do. Neil sat by the back door and watched him until it was dark enough and dinner called them inside.

There was a tense hush among the adults at the table. They knew Andrew would probably be back to normal by the morning, and Kevin kept looking at Neil in what was probably supposed to be a significant way. Neil scrunched his face up at him, ugly, and then ignored him the rest of the meal to watch Andrew awkwardly handle his fork.

_____________________

“Do you want bubbles this time?”

Andrew looked at him solemnly. “I am the Bubble King.”

Neil smiled and poured the bubble mix in.

_____________________

It didn’t immediately occur to Neil; he opened his eyes, saw Andrew was awake, and closed them again before realizing, _that’s **Andrew**_. Fully grown, twenty-one-year-old Andrew, staring blankly at the ceiling. He had the same look on his face as he did when he was remembering things, and Neil had prepared for this.

“Andrew,” he called softly.

Still looking forward, he responded, “Don’t.”

Neil paused a moment, considering. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Just don’t touch me.”

Neil didn’t. He closed his eyes again, giving Andrew some privacy to sort things out. Eventually, he heard a shifting noise, and opened his eyes to see that Andrew had turned his head to regard Neil. When it was clear he wasn’t going to speak first, Neil asked, “Do you remember what happened?”

“Yes.” Which meant that he remembered every single thing that had happened for the past week.

Andrew had problems about being considered weak. Neil knew this. The entire last week was nothing but Andrew Minyard being what he would consider weak, and Neil knew he hated it. Andrew didn’t believe in shame or regret, but the fact that he had been so undeniably vulnerable in front of four of the only people he bothered with was probably burning him inside.

“How are you feeling?” Neil asked. Andrew looked at him blankly and Neil clarified, “Because you changed back. I didn’t know if it would make you sick or anything.”

Andrew only blinked at him, which Neil took as a _no_.

He stared at Andrew, studying his face, partially to assess how he may be feeling and partially just to drink him in. He’d _missed_ Andrew, a bone-deep pain that was more pressing than what he’d felt even after his mother had died and he’d spent a year on his own.

Andrew looked the same as ever, though, bizarrely, he had a few days’ worth of stubble. Present in his eyes was the half-between look he got when he was stuck remembering things and struggled to get out of his own head. He got like this when he overloaded with information, something Neil had only seen happen once because Andrew was very good at not letting that happen. But now he had an entire week’s worth of memories that his brain was making him relive right at this moment.

They stayed like that for a while, silent, Andrew not really seeing anything and Neil watching either Andrew or the light growing stronger where it leaked in through the blinds. It was early enough that they were the only ones awake. Neil was looking at a spot on the ceiling that he thought might indicate water damage when Andrew said, “You are extraordinarily bad with children.”

Neil turned to Andrew sharply. “What do you mean?”

He said flatly, “Calm down, drama queen.”

Neil scoffed. He turned back to look at the ceiling spot.

“It was somehow very amusing to watch you flounder when faced with a child.”

He looked at Andrew from the corner of his eye. “I know…” He paused and gathered his words. “I know there are things you don’t want anyone else to know, and I-”

“Save it. There is nothing I would have told you that was off-limits for you to know.”

_Because nothing worth keeping to yourself had happened yet._ “Okay.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Neil turned his head to Andrew and said, “I’m glad you’re back.”

“I never left,” Andrew snapped, but he reached up and shoved Neil’s face away anyway. “Go make me breakfast.”

Laughing, Neil did.

_____________________

  
Andrew had to put up with three different people saying to him, _Oh. You’re back to normal._ Nicky cemented his position as Most Annoying by screeching it. (He skype-called Neil’s phone over breakfast. Neil answered and then immediately handed it to Andrew. He allowed for two seconds of his grating yelling before hanging up and turning Neil’s phone off.)

Andrew waited until the afternoon when Neil and Kevin were arguing about something probably Exy-related in the living room to corner Aaron in his room. Aaron looked up from his phone when he closed the door, and raised his eyebrows. “How are you feeling? Do you remember what happened?”

Andrew decided to play along. “Yes.”

Aaron tapped the side of his phone thoughtfully, and The Doctor Look stole over his face. Andrew hated that look; it was the same one his previous twelve therapists had gotten after one session with him. It was not a very different look from the one worn by his abusers. “Where are they stored?” At Andrew’s blank look, he elaborated. “Your memories. Are they with your most recent memories, or…” Because he knew about Andrew’s memory. Andrew had told him back when they lived together with Tilda.

He looked through his brain for a moment. “They’re with the rest of my memories from when I was four. I have to search for them.”

Aaron nodded, rolling that over in his mind.

Andrew grew bored of waiting. “I’m older. Is there anything you were waiting to ask me?” he asked mockingly.

His twin’s hands stilled, no longer fidgeting with his phone. He looked up at Andrew, not in the cornered rabbit way Neil does, and not in the trapped deer way everyone else does. Aaron’s expression was always more akin to that of a cat who knows he’s about to get kicked and that he’s powerless to keep that from happening.

It was odd to see him from his own perspective again. All week Andrew had eyed him carefully. Aaron was okay to be around mostly, even surprisingly pleasant. He remembered the day Aaron had watched and played with him (unfortunately that memory had triggered the ones of Drake tickling him while holding him down, and he’d thrown up in the shower). But Aaron’s temper had alarmed little-him, and he had viewed Aaron as a threat the whole week.

But now he remembered being wary of him even as he knew there was nothing remotely fearsome about his cowardly brother.

“No,” Aaron answers finally. Always backing down.

“That is not what it sounded like a few days ago.”

“Because your little guard dog made it clear that I had no business talking to you,” he replied snidely.

“Neil would not have needed to do that if you hadn’t tried to take advantage of me.” And then, because he was feeling a little cruel, he asked, “What did you want to know? If the others beat me? When was the first time I was held down and-”

“ _Yes_ ,” Aaron snapped. He had a dark look on his face that Andrew had only seen a handful of times. “That’s what I was trying to find out, because I wanted to know if I should keep him away from you.”

“That is not how this works.” The conversation was rapidly becoming uninteresting.

“I don’t care.”

“Neither do I,” he reminded him.

“That’s right, because you can’t feel like a normal fucking person, you psycho,” Aaron spat. All their sessions with Bee, he’d hardly ever showed his anger, but now it was only him and Andrew. “That’s not ‘how this works’ because you don’t want a single thing to do with me. Even after I…”

“After you what?” Andrew asked softly, dangerously. “After you killed Drake? Do you think I should owe you for that?”

“ _No_. I’d do it again if I could.”

Andrew ignored this. “You chose Tilda.”

“ _You_ chose _Josten_!” The yell ripped out of Aaron and he looked somewhat surprised, as if even he didn’t know how much that statement bothered him.

Andrew spared a thought to how much more aggravating Neil would be if he heard what he and Aaron were fighting about. “He chose me first.”

It might have been meant as ironic, or at least not as significant as it seemed when it was out of his mouth. It made Aaron pause, as if he could tell exactly how important of a thing being chosen was. He probably could. Andrew hadn’t meant to reveal something like that, but there it was. Oh well.

Andrew held up a finger in the silence, a visual representation of his bullet points. “I owe you nothing for killing him.” Two. “You forfeited all right to have any opinion about who I do or do not talk to long ago.” Three. “I do not need you to protect me.” Four. “I was seven.”

Aaron had been opening his mouth to cut him off, but stopped dead in his tracks at the last statement. “You… What?”

“You asked when it happened for the first time.” This hadn’t come up at the trial a year ago; he’d only been asked about what happened specifically with Drake, and that’s all he shared. Only Neil, and now Aaron, knew this.

He watched Aaron mull this over for a moment, then turned to leave. He didn’t have anything else to say to him.

_____________________

The next day Andrew took Aaron and Kevin back to Palmetto to crash at Abby’s house and turned right back around and drove back to Columbia. Nicky was still in Germany for a week, and he and Neil had the house to themselves for that duration.

They didn’t touch, didn’t kiss. Andrew didn’t initiate anything, and Neil thought it was probably because his childhood was still too close in his mind. It was perfectly fine with him. He enjoyed arguing about where to go out for lunch just as much as anything else he did with Andrew.

It was on the last day before they were scheduled to go back to campus when Andrew asked, “Yes or no?” and, after Neil’s affirmation, pulled him in. It was relatively brief and Andrew drew back as soon as it ended. He scowled when he saw that Neil was smiling.

“Get that stupid look off your face and get in the car.”

Neil kept smiling. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really bad at endings.
> 
> And finally, it's done. Thank all of you so much for reading it and leaving comments/kudos. Even if I don't reply, I read each and ever comment and they mean the world to me. Thank y'all so much for sticking around for this (slightly out of hand) fic. It was my first ever and you all made me feel good enough to start writing again.
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/1980sghostboy) and [tumblr](http://www.1980sghostboy.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Look at this amazing [art](http://mavilez.tumblr.com/post/160883393616/hnnnggg-inspired-by-the-cutest-kid-fic-by) drawn by [mavilez](http://mavilez.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Follow me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/1980salienboi) and [tumblr](http://1980salienboi.tumblr.com/)


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